JIM  AND  HIS  SOUL 


BY 

W.    J.    DAWSON 


NEW  YORK 

THOMAS  Y.  CROWELL  &   COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


JIM    AND    HIS    SOUL 

H  Street 

I 

HE  was  called  Jim  because  his  parents  were 
deficient  in  imagination. 

"  It's  as  good  a  name  as  any  other  for  the  little 
beggar,"  said  his  father.  "  It's  wot  I'm  called." 

He  then  banged  the  door  and  went  out.  Jim's 
mother  lay  quiet  under  the  sloping  ceiling  of  the 
attic  which  she  called  home,  and  thought  over 
things.  She  had  known  a  woman  once  who  called 
her  child  Gustavus,  but  it  had  proved  a  poor 
speculation.  Gustavus  had  been  shortened  to  Gus, 
and  from  that  it  had  degenerated  to  Buster,  by 
which  name  "  the  Street "  made  up  its  mind  to 
know  him.  It  was  no  use  explaining  matters  to 
the  Street  ;  when  the  Street  had  made  up  its  mind 
it  was  irreconcilable.  "  Buster  "  tickled  its  fancy, 
and  punching  Buster's  head  became  a  favourite 
amusement.  When  Buster  'was  run  over  by  a 
dray  the  gaiety  of  that  particular  section  of  the 
nation  was  eclipsed.  A  distinct  element  of 

3  , 

20649** 


4  JIM  AND  HIS  SOUL 

humour  had  passed  out  of  its  life,  and  the  Street 
sorrowed. 

She  had  known  a  woman  once  who  had  eleven 
children,  and  had  found  a  Bible  name  for  each  of 
them.  That  was  a  long  while  ago,  however,  when 
she  had  lived  in  the  country,  where  Bibles  are 
sometimes  found.  There  were  no  Bibles  in  Para- 
dise Street  She  closed  her  eyes  and  thought 
quietly,  and  a  surprising  vision  slid  under  the 
closed  eyelids.  She  saw  cornfields,  bordered  by 
hedges  in  which  blackberries  grew  thick,  and  a 
little  river  with  brown  pebbles,  and  tall  elm-trees, 
and  cresting  the  hill,  like  plumes,  a  plantation  of 
tasselled  larches.  She  heard  a  lark  singing,  and 
the  little  river  seemed  to  sing  also  as  it  flowed. 
The  sky  was  so  big  that  it  frightened  her,  and  it 
was  so  blue  you  seemed  to  look  right  into  it,  and 
through  it,  and  yet  never  came  to  the  end.  Then 
she  remembered  the  woman  with  the  biblical  chil- 
dren again,  and  recollected  that  when  the  eleventh 
was  born  it  took  a  week  to  find  a  name,  and  folks 
said  they  had  given  the  boy  a  girl's  name  after 
all.  It  was  clear  that  the  Bible  was  not  much 
good  for  naming  children. 

She  felt  very  tired  and  weak,  as  well  she  might. 
There  had  been  very  little  work  to  be  had  lately, 
and  little  work  meant  little  food.  She  felt  that 
she  ought  to  be  up  and  about ;  it  was  a  dreadful 
waste  of  time  to  be  there  doing  nothing.  But 


JIM  AND  HIS  SOUL  5 

when  she  tried  to  sit  up  her  head  fell  back  heavily, 
and  her  hands  trembled.  Then  she  lay  quite  still 
again,  enjoying  rather  guiltily  the  sense  of  absolute 
inactivity.  The  only  time  she  had  ever  had  any 
rest  in  her  life  was  when  her  children  had  been 
born.  She  had  had  five,  and  they  were  all  dead. 
"  Insufficient  nourishment,"  the  doctor  said,  which 
was  no  doubt  a  very  true  remark,  but  not  a  helpful 
one.  That  made  her  think  of  little  Jim.  She 
unconsciously  drew  the  small  bundle  of  humanity 
closer  to  her  bosom,  and  the  warmth  of  the 
child's  body  soothed  her,  and  sent  a  little  pulse 
of  motherhood  thrilling  with  a  live  joy  through 
her  nerves.  Then  she  thought  again  of  the  five 
who  had  died  of  insufficient  nourishment,  and 
she  remembered  that  little  Jim  was  a  Mouth.  If 
children  were  self-supporting  creatures,  if,  for  ex- 
ample, you  could  turn  them  out  to  browse  at 
once  like  new-born  lambs,  Paradise  Street  would 
not  have  objected  to  their  presence.  That  not 
being  the  case,  and  there  being  nothing  particular 
to  browse  upon  in  Paradise  Street,  the  accepted 
doctrine  was  that  children  were  calamities.  In  the 
meantime  the  newly  arrived  calamity  slept,  with 
little  red  fists  doubled  up  pugnaciously,  and  as 
his  mother  gathered  her  thin  arms  around  him 
she  forgot  he  was  a  Mouth. 

Toward  evening  something  happened.     Jim  the 
elder  had  been  out  several  hours,  but  that  was  not 


6  JIM  AND  HIS  SOUL 

unusual.  When  the  darkness  set  in,  and  he  had 
not  returned,  however,  his  wife  began  to  grow 
uneasy,  for  he  had  promised  to  be  back  in  an  hour 
or  two.  She  had  had  nothing  to  eat  since,  the 
early  morning.  She  heard  doors  banging  below, 
and  wheels  in  the  street,  and  the  shouts  of  the 
costers,  and  she  knew  what  hour  it  was  by  the 
lighting  of  the  street  lamps.  Suddenly  she  was 
conscious  of  heavy  feet  upon  the  stairs,  and  loud 
whisperings  at  the  door.  Then  the  door  opened, 
and  she  made  out  the  figure  of  a  man  standing 
sheepishly  on  the  threshold.  Two  or  three  \vomen 
stood  behind  him  engaged  in  the  task  of  pushing 
him  forward. 

"  Go  on  in,  and  get  it  done,  Bill,"  murmured  a 
hoarse  voice. 

"You've  got  to  say  it,  and  wot  is,  is,"  was 
the  next  remark,  which  was  undoubtedly  philo- 
sophic. 

"  We've  chose  you,  and  you  must,"  the  voices 
murmured  in  chorus. 

Thus  adjured,  the  man  entered  the  room,  and 
stood  within  a  yard  of  the  bed.  He  had  a  greasy 
cap  in  his  hand,  which  appeared  also  to  be  soaked 
with  water.  He  held  it  out  meditatively. 

"  I  thought  as  'ow  you  might  like  to  'ave  this 
'ere,"  he  said  huskily.  "Just  a  relict,  you  know — 
a  relict  of  your  old  man !  " 

He  had  accomplished  his  task,  and  smiled  to 


JIM  AND  HIS  SOUL  7 

himself  at  his  success.  He  believed  he  had  been 
sympathetic. 

"  Wot ! "  cried  Jim's  wife,  as  she  sat  up  in  the 
bed.  "  Wot  do  you  say  ?  " 

"  A  relict — just  a  relict,  you  know ;  thought  as 
'ow  you  might  like  to  'ave  it,"  repeated  the  man. 

"  Oh,  get  away,  you  fool,  and  leave  her  to 
me  !  "  cried  a  woman's  voice.  "  Your  Jim's  been 
drownded,  and  that's  his  'at  That's  wot  it  is,  God 
love  ye ! " 

"  Fell  inter  the  dock ! "  cried  the  women  in 
chorus. 

"  They're  a-grapplin'  for  'im,"  they  added  by 
way  of  imparting  vividness  to  the  picture. 

"  And  this  'ere's  'is  'at,"  said  the  man  again, 
determined  not  to  be  left  out.  "Thought  you 
might  like  to  'ave  it  as  a  relict." 

It  was  thus  little  Jim's  mother  knew  that  Jim 
was  all  she  had  left  to  her  in  the  world. 

II 

WHEN  Jim  began  to  grow  up  he  found  himself 
very  much  alone.  His  mother  went  out  to  work 
in  the  early  morning,  and  usually  did  not  come 
home  till  late  at  night.  When  he  was  very  little, 
she  used  to  put  the  fire  out  before  she  went,  and 
she  left  him  to  amuse  himself  as  he  could  in  the 
lonely  attic.  His  amusements  were  strictly  limited. 


8  JIM  AND  HIS  SOUL 

Sometimes  he  got  a  piece  of  lovely  black  coal  and 
played  with  it,  asking  it  many  questions,  till  he 
grew  angry  because  it  would  not  keep  up  the 
conversation,  and  then  he  threw  it  away.  Some- 
times he  climbed  up  to  the  window  and  watched 
for  hours  the  smoke  curling  from  an  endless 
wilderness  of  chimney-pots,  and  the  dirty  sparrows 
twittering  and  jigging  along  the  gutters  of  the  roof. 
He  tried  hard  to  get  them  to  play  with  him,  but 
whenever  he  tapped  the  window-pane  they  winked 
their  little  beady  eyes  at  him,  and  hopped  further 
away,  with  an  indignant  shake  of  sooty  feathers. 
Sometimes,  in  the  late  winter  afternoons,  he  saw 
'certain  small  points  of  light  like  pinholes  in  the 
smoke-haze  overhead,  but  he  did  not  know  they 
were  stars.  Once  the  full  moon  stopped  and 
looked  into  the  window,  and  then  he  cried  with 
fright.  It  was  like  a  great  pale  face,  and,  like 
everything  he  knew,  it  was  dumb.  He  liked  the 
gas-lamps  better,  for  he  knew  that  when  they  were 
lit  his  mother  would  soon  come.  Thus  he  lived 
the  day  out  after  his  own  fashion,  and  when  he 
was  tired  he  crept  into  the  bed  and  went  to  sleep. 
His  only  wish  was  that  he  might  sleep  all  the  time. 
When  he  was  six  years  old  he  took  up  his  abode 
permanently  in  the  streets.  They  were  his  nursery, 
his  restaurant,  his  church,  his  school,  his  university. 
He  graduated  with  honours.  He  was  perfectly 
happy,  because  he  had  no  sense  of  sin  or  desire 


JIM  AND  HIS  SOUL  9 

for  better  things  to  trouble  him.  He  was  content 
with  the  gutter.  He  would  have  enjoyed  the 
husks  which  the  swine  do  eat,  and  have  quarrelled 
with  the  pigs  for  a  larger  share.  There  is  very 
little  doubt  that  the  pigs  would  have  come  off 
second  best  in  such  a  struggle. 

Likewise  he  had  never  heard  of  God,  though  he 
often  heard  of  the  devil.  Of  course  he  knew  the 
word  God  well  enough,  but  his  notions  of  its 
meaning  were  hazy.  The  policeman  served  for  a 
convenient  incarnation  of  both  the  good  and  evil 
principles  of  the  world.  When  he  marched  down 
the  street  majestic  in  bright  uniform,  and  was 
good-humoured,  Jim  thought  that  he  was  God  ; 
when  he  was  surly  on  wet  days,  and  drove  the 
boys  out  of  the  gutter,  Jim  thought  he  was  the 
devil,  and,  indeed,  told  him  so.  It  made  no 
difference  to  the  policeman  what  Jim  thought, 
anyway.  Their  spheres  were  too  far  apart 

Up  to  this  time  it  is  doubtful  if  Jim  had  a  soul ; 
at  all  events,  he  was  not  conscious  of  it.  Then  it 
happened  that  he  picked  up  one  day  a  flower,  and 
the  flower  told  him  he  had  a  soul.  He  was  un- 
wholesomely  familiar  with  potato  peelings,  and 
onion  stalks,  and  cabbage  leaves,  picturesquely 
arabesqued  with  mud  spots  and  yellow  splotches 
of  decay,  but  he  had  never  seen  a  flower.  The 
flower  he  picked  up  was  a  white  hyacinth. 

The  first  thing  that  amazed  him  was  its  perfume. 


10  JIM  AND  HIS  SQUL 

The  rich  arrowy  odour  stole  along  his  senses,  and 
pierced  his  brain,  and  caused  a  sort  of  stinging 
delight  within  him.  For  the  first  time  it  occurred 
to  him  that  the  gutter  had  a  smell  also,  a  smell 
by  no  means  hyacinthine.  Then  he  noticed  the 
purity  of  the  flower,  and  simultaneously  he  dis- 
covered that  he  was  dirty.  The  flower  looked  at 
him  reproachfully,  and  seemed  to  draw  back  from 
him.  He  would  have  liked  to  kiss  it,  but  he  was 
afraid.  He  did  put  it  to  his  lips,  but  its  coldness 
repulsed  him.  He  laid  it  down  upon  the  steps  of 
the  church  where  he  happened  to  be  sitting,  and 
looked  at  it  a  long  while.  Just  then  the  bells 
began  to  ring  high  up  in  the  tower,  and  they  too 
seemed  to  have  a  voice  that  was  reproachful.  The 
flower  said,  "  There's  a  world  you  have  never  seen, 
and  that  is  where  I  belong — a  world  that  is  always 
fresh  and  odorous  and  beautiful."  The  bells  said, 
"There's  a  world  up  here  too,  right  above  the 
smoke,  where  we  live,  and  we  are  the  voices  which 
inhabit  it ;  hear  how  happy  are  we ! "  Then  a 
great  longing  began  to  grow  in  the  heart  cf  little 
Jim.  He  did  not  know  what  he  wanted,  but  he 
felt  that  it  was  something  wonderful  and  beautiful, 
and  which  he  could  never  get.  He  took  up  the 
hyacinth  again,  and  the  odour  of  it  thrilled  through 
him,  until  something  seemed  to  hurt  him  in  his 
side — something  that  throbbed  and  made  him  sad, 
and  filled  his  eyes  with  tears,  he  knew  not  how  nor 


JIM  AND  HIS  SOUL  ti 

why.  He  did  not  know,  but  that  was  the  moment 
when  the  Soul  was  born  in  him.  It  entered  into 
him  with  the  fragrance  of  the  hyacinth,  and  the 
music  of  the  bells,  and  the  pain  he  felt  was  its 
birth-throe.  Jim  got  up  solemnly,  and  took  the 
flower  in  his  hand,  and  went  home  slowly,  feeling 
that  something  had  happened  to  him.  He  marched 
down  the  middle  of  the  muddy  street  holding  the 
flower  at  arm's  length  before  him,  for  fear  it  should 
touch  his  dirty  rags,  and  be  angry  with  him.  He 
passed  a  whole  bruised  orange  in  the  gutter,  but 
he  did  not  even  stop  to  look  at  it  The  flower 
would  not  let  him. 

That  night  when  Jim's  mother  came  home  she 
found  him  fast  asleep,  with  the  flower  carefully  laid 
out  beside  him  on  half  of  the  front  page  of  the 
Police  News.  She  filled  a  cracked  jam-pot  with 
water  and  put  the  flower  into  it  Then  the  flower 
must  have  told  her  something  also — something 
about  the  elm-trees,  and  the  brook,  and  the  old- 
fashioned  farm-garden  where  the  nasturtiums 
climbed  when  she  was  young  ;  for  she  sat  very 
silently  before  the  fireless  grate,  and  did  nothing 
for  fully  ten  minutes.  The  flower  had  made  her 
think,  and  thinking  had  the  curious  effect  of 
making  her  apron  travel  to  her  eyes. 

Ill 

WHEN   Jim's  soul   came  into  him  several  things 


12  JIM  AND  HIS  SOUL 

happened.  For  one  thing,  all  the  glory  of  the 
street  had  faded.  The  gutter  was  no  longer  a 
place  of  delight.  The  making  of  mud-pies  was 
no  more  an  amusement  for  the  gods.  Paradise 
Street  (why  are  all  the  worst  streets  called  by  the 
loveliest  names  ?)  had  suddenly  become  squalid. 

A  spirit  of  adventure  possessed  Jim,  and  the 
soul  was  the  cause  of  it.  He  had  never  travelled 
half  a  hundred  yards  from  "  the  Street "  in  his  life 
He  had  a  dim  notion  that  there  was  a  world  not 
far  away,  and  he  resolved  to  see  it.  Not  Vasco  di 
Gama  nor  Columbus  felt  mere  elated  when  they 
drove  their  prows  into  the  unknown  waters,  and 
marked  the  flight  of  strange  land-birds  over  the 
foaming  waste,  than  was  Jim  when  he  emerged 
out  of  "the  Street"  into  the  Strand.  The  lights 
dazzled  him,  and  the  throng  of  wheels  frightened 
him.  When  he  got  into  Trafalgar  Square  he  was 
possessed  of  a  great  horror.  He  had  never  seen 
an  open  space  before,  and  it  seemed  terrible.  But 
when  he  reached  St.  James's  Park  an  ecstasy 
seized  him  ;  for  here  were  trees,  here  were  green- 
sward and  water,  and  here  were  flowers.  The 
trees  shook  their  boughs  as  though  they  were 
living  things  that  might  pursue  him,  and  the  water 
lay  dark  in  the  evening  light,  and  the  flowers 
looked  at  him  through  the  dusk,  and  sent  him  a 
message  in  the  only  language  they  know — the 
language  of  fragrance.  Jim  stood  silent,  a  pathetic 


JIM  AND  HIS  SOUL  13 

little  figure,  with  hands  clasped  behind  his  back, 
and  ragged  breast  thrust  well  forward,  and  greasy 
cap  laid  beside  him  on  the  path.  It  must  have 
been  the  soul  that  told  him  to  take  his  cap  off  in 
the  presence  of  the  flowers.  He  had  never  done 
so  before ;  it  was  the  first  symptom  of  a  prayer. 
Then  he  ran  home  as  fast  as  he  could,  for  the  trees 
frightened  him. 

When  the  soul  comes  into  even  the  dingiest 
little  body  it  makes  itself  felt  by  the  desire  to 
know  and  to  love.  The  School  Board  captured 
Jim  and  taught  him  to  know  ;  it  was  the  same 
blessed  agency  that  gave  him  the  chance  of  loving. 
Jim  was  twelve  years  old  when  he  began  to  love, 
and  this  was  how  it  happened. 

There  was  a  little  girl  who  was  captured  by  the 
School  Board  about  the  same  time  as  Jim,  and 
from  the  same  neighbourhood.  She  was  not 
pretty,  for  prettiness  is  not  frequent  in  the  slums. 
She  was  poorly  clothed,  of  course,  but  she  was 
always  neat.  She  sometimes  had  a  ribbon  round 
her  neck,  which  may  have  been  the  working  of  the 
barbaric  or  the  spiritual  instinct,  I  can't  say  which. 
She  had  fair  hair  and  dark  grey  eyes,  and  she  was 
a  cripple.  Jim  saw  her  limping  home  one  cruel 
day  when  the  streets  were  slippery  with  frozen 
mud,  and  the  soul  inside  him  told  him  to  help  her, 
and  he  did  it.  From  that  he  learned  to  accompany 
her  home  every  day.  They  shared  their  crusts 


14  JIM  AND  HIS  SOUL 

together.  When  it  was  cold  they  took  each  other's 
hands  for  warmth.  They  often  sat  down  on  a 
doorstep  and  talked,  their  hands  clasped  all  the 
while. 

"Jim,"  she  said  one  day,  "  do  you  think  it's  any 
good  being  born  ?  I  don't" 

"  Don't  know,"  said  Jim,  who  had  not  travelled 
quite  so  far  in  the  realm  of  philosophic  doubt. 

"  I  don't,"  she  answered,  with  conviction,  "  'speci- 
ally when  you're  a  cripple.  My  father  beat  me 
last  night,"  she  said.  "  He  often  beats  mother. 
I  don't  think  I  shall  go  home  to-night" 

That  alarmed  Jim,  and  also  excited  his  curiosity 

"  What  are  ycr  goin'  to  do,  then  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Drown  myself,"  said  the  child  solemnly.  "  Lots 
of  people  does  it,  an'  it  doesn't  hurt  much." 

"  That  yer  ain't,"  said  Jim. 

"  Why  not  ?  " 

"  'Cause  I  ain't  a-goin*  to  let  yer,"  he  replied, 
with  masculine  authority. 

"  I  am,"  said  the  child.  "  An'  I  know  a  place, 
too.  It's  awful  deep.  I'll  show  it  yer,  if  yer  like." 

Jim  ought  then  to  have  imposed  his  masculine 
authority  again,  but  he  did  not.  His  curiosity 
overcame  him.  He  thought  there  would  be  no 
harm  in  looking  at  the  place. 

"Very  well,"  said  he,  "let's  look  at  it  But 
mind,  I  ain't  a-goin1  to  let  yer." 

Across  the  Strand,  no  more  a  place  of  terror, 


JIM  AND  HIS  SOUL  15 

they  passed,  and  round  the  corner  of  Charing 
Cross,  and  down  the  historic  way  to  Westminster. 
They  mutually  agreed  it  would  be  best  to  go  by 
the  best  streets  to  "the  place,"  anyway.  There's 
no  use  in  going  by  the  most  unpleasant  way  to 
the  scaffold.  A  hundred  years  ago  criminals 
rather  enjoyed  riding  to  Tyburn  on  their  coffins. 
They  probably  felt  the  exhilaration  of  being  part 
of  a  procession.  They  are  much  less  cheerful 
nowadays,  when  the  scaffold  yawns  at  the  end  of 
a  whitewashed  passage. 

But  when  they  reached  Westminster,  and  were 
crossing  the  broad  road  to  the  Embankment, 
suddenly  the  fog  thickened,  and  rolled  down  like 
a  sooty  curtain.  A  hansom  rushed  past,  with  its 
great  flashing  lamps  like  awful  eyes  turned  upon 
them.  In  the  scuffle  to  get  out  of  the  way  they 
were  separated,  and  the  darkness  rolled  between 
them. 

"  Where  are  yer  ?  "  shouted  Jim.  "  Annie,  Annie, 
Annie  ! "  At  each  cry  his  voice  grew  shriller,  till 
it  was  a  shrielc. 

"  She's  gone  an'  done  it  1 "  he  cried. 

He  felt  his  way  along  the  cold,  slimy  wall  oi 
the  Embankment.  He  heard  the  dismal  lap  of 
the  tide  far  down  on  the  other  side.  The  lamp' 
burned  spectral ;  the  roar  of  the  city,  like  thi 
stifled  anger  of  some  great  beast  behind  its  bars, 
reverberated  dully  through  the  blackness.  An  evil 


16  JIM  AND  HIS  SOUL 

odour  rose  out  of  the  river,  a  deathly  smell  from 
the  rancid  mud  which  perhaps  covered  those  who 
had  "done  it."  Jim's  courage  failed  him.  He 
ran  along  by  the  wall  till  he  came  to  a  great 
opening,  which  yawned  like  a  monstrous  mouth 
before  him.  It  seemed  as  though  a  bit  of  the 
world  had  fallen  out,  and  unfathomable  space  lay 
below.  His  voice  grew  hoarse  with  shouting,  and 
the  cold  pricked  his  bones. 

"  It's  no  good  ! "  he  sobbed  at  last  "  She's 
done  it !  I've  lost  *er." 

Then  through  the  fog  he  heard  a  footstep  with 
a  limp  in  it.  He  rushed  forward,  and  there  was 
Annie.  He  was  going  to  be  angry,  which  is  the 
natural  masculine  method  of  expressing  love  under 
such  circumstances.  But  the  soul  would  not  let 
him.  Instead  of  being  angry,  he  did  an  altogether 
extraordinary  thing.  He  put  his  arms  round  the 
little  shivering  cripple  and  kissed  her.  He  had 
never  kissed  any  one  but  his  mother  in  his  life, 
and  that  not  often.  And  then  there  ran  through 
every  nerve,  tingling  right  down  to  his  bare  toes. 
a  delicious  shock,  a  warmth  and  yearning,  a  satu- 
rating, sufficing  joy,  which  made  it  seem  as  though 
the  whole  world  had  become  sunlit,  and  as  if 
all  the  flowers  of  the  world  had  suddenly  flung 
themselves  in  his  face,  drenching  him  with  dew 
and  fragrance. 

I  don't  suppose  anybody  will  believe  this,  but 


JIM  AND  HIS  SOUL  17 

that  doesn't  matter.  When  a  starved  heart  wakes 
up  prince  and  beggar  feel  much  the  same,  but  the 
beggar  has  the  best  of  it  If  Dante  could  have 
kissed  Beatrice  thus  at  the  corner  of  that  lovely 
old  Ponte  Vecchio  in  Florence,  he  would  have  felt 
much  the  same  as  when  poor  Jim  kissed  the  cripple 
girl,  and  found  out  thereby  how  love  tasted. 

IV 

IT  was  May  morning  on  the  Embankment  The 
long  rows  of  plane-trees  had  a  green  film  upon 
them,  and  Spring  ran  light-footed  from  tree-top 
to  tree-top  with  a  thrilling  whisper  about  good 
times  coming,  which  she  communicated  to  each 
in  turn.  When  the  trees  heard  it  they  trembled 
for  joy,  and  the  branches  began  to  talk  to  each 
other,  and  to  say,  "  See  how  green  we  are  getting ! " 
A  warm  wind  from  the  south  blew  over  the  river, 
and  a  smooth  white  cloud  lay  along  the  southern 
sky,  on  which  the  sun  sparkled  as  though  it  were 
snow.  The  dirty  Thames  had  a  holiday  look,  and 
the  muddy  little  waves  had  small  sparkles  of 
occasional  emerald  on  their  crests.  The  dingy 
sparrows  knew  that  something  was  the  matter  ; 
one  or  two  were  washing  themselves  in  the  little 
pools  left  by  the  night's  rain,  and  the  rest  were 
darting  about  with  such  swiftness  that  they  seemed 
to  turn  somersaults  as  they  went  Down  the  river 
a  red-sailed  barge  moved  slowly,  with  a  dog  bark- 

2 


i8  JIM  AND  HIS  SOUL 

ing  joyously  at  her  bows.  The  cabmen  had 
flowers  in  their  coats,  and  occasionally  a  sprig  of 
green  twisting  in  the  corner  of  their  mouths. 
There  was  cheerfulness  and  vital  joy  in  the  air, 
for  London  was  shaking  off  the  soot  of  winter, 
and  was  getting  ready  for  a  more  welcome 
visitor. 

At  the  Westminster  Bridge  corner  of  the  Em- 
bankment our  two  children  stood,  but  children  no 
more.  Jim  was  gay  in  uniform  ;  he  was  now  a 
telegraph  messenger,  and  it  was  his  proud  task  to 
shout  as  he  passed  into  his  work  every  morning, 
"  87  on  Duty ! "  It  gave  him  an  immense  sense 
of  dignity  to  utter  that  formula.  It  was  always 
repeated  with  chest  thrown  forward,  and  head 
thrown  back,  in  right  soldierly  fashion.  In  such 
moments  he  did  not  feel  that  he  belonged  to  Her 
Majesty's  Postal  Service ;  he  felt  that  it  belonged 
to  him. 

Every  morning  he  met  Annie  at  the  corner  of 
the  Bridge.  She  had  now  become  a  flower-seller, 
and  something  of  the  sweetness  of  the  flowers  had 
passed  into  her  face.  She  was  pale,  and  as  she 
had  grown  older  had  become  fragile  ;  her  grey 
eyes  had  purple  shadows  under  them,  and  her 
mouth  had  a  tenseness  about  its  corners  which 
suggested  suffering.  Her  lameness  had  become 
more  manifest.  She  used  a  crutch  now,  and  had 
a  sensitive  dread  of  having  it  noticed.  Often  and 


JIM  AND  HIS  SOUL  19 

often  as  she  sat  beside  the  Bridge,  witching  the 
long  stream  of  people  passing  and  re-passing,  she 
imagined  that  every  one  looked  at  her  crutch,  and 
not  at  her  flowers.  Thousands  of  eyes  regarded 
her,  and  every  one  seemed  to  burn  like  flame. 
They  instinctively  sought  the  crutch,  and  she  saw 
the  thought  vibrate  across  each  brain,  "  She's  a 
cripple,  poor  thing."  But  there  was  a  quiet  glow 
always  on  her  face  in  these  early  mornings.  It 
was  her  time  of  perfect  happiness,  for  then  Jim 
was  with  her.  Often,  too,  the  mornings  were 
exquisite,  and  they  alone  might  make  a  glory  on 
any  face  that  watched  them.  For  then  the  air 
was  often  very  still,  and  a  fragrance  of  rain-washed 
meadows  penetrated  it,  and  the  clouds  took  strange 
shapes  and  colours,  and  the  gilded  towers  of  West- 
minster were  touched  with  a  fire  of  dawn  which 
added  magic  grace  to  their  soaring  symmetry.  No 
doubt  Annie  felt  something  of  all  this  in  a  dumb 
way,  for  the  mornings  inspired  her  with  a  sense 
of  unuttered  friendliness  and  fascination  ;  but  if 
you  had  asked  her,  she  would  have  said  that  Jim's 
face  was  the  real  morning  to  her. 

There  was  no  one  stirring,  and  they  sat  together 
and  talked  in  the  old  way,  hand  in  hand 

"  I'm  very  tired  sometimes,"  said  the  girl,  "  but 
then  I  think  of  yer,  Jim,  an'  know  the  next  mornin* 
ain't  far  off,  an'  I  'old  up." 

"  I'm  goin'  to  marry  yer  soon  as  I'm  able,"  said 


20  JIM  AND  HIS  SOUL 

Jim,  "  an'  then  yer  sha'n't  sell  nothin'  no  more  in 
the  streets,  leastways  in  winter." 

"  Oh,  but  I  like  selling  the  flowers,"  said  the  girl. 
"  I've  got  to  love  'em  in  a  way.  They  make  me 
wonder  all  about  wot  it's  like  where  they  grows. 
You'  went  there  once,  didn't  you,  Jim  ?  Tell's 
about  it  again." 

"  Yer  knows  it  all,"  said  Jim  ;  but  he  brightened 
all  the  same  with  eagerness  to  go  back  to  such  a 
theme.  It  was  the  great  event  of  his  life. 

"'Twas  at  a  place  they  call  Dorkin'  I  saw  it  I 
was  'most  frightened  at  first,  like  as  'ow  when  I 
was  a  kid  and  first  see'd  the  Park.  There  was  no 
end  of  fields,  and  yer  could  see  where  the  sky  and 
the  earth  jined.  They  stretched  right  on  and  on, 
and  every  hedge  you  see'd  had  white  flowers  on 
'un,  and  some  of  the  trees  had  flowers  too.  When 
a  cloud  come  over  them  yer  didn't  see  nothin'  but 
somethin'  whity  and  pinky,  but  when  the  cloud 
rolled  by  then  those  flowers  fairly  danced,  they 
was  so  glad,  and  kinder  sparkled  one  to  'nother. 
There  was  a  wood  there  too,  an'  I  looked  inter  it. 
Why,  the  floor  of  it  was  all  blue  an'  yeller,  like 
as  though  a  carpet  were  drawed  over  it.  'Twas 
flowers  everywhere ;  'twas  burstin'  with  'em.  I 
looked  just  to  see  if  no  one  saw  me,  an'  then  I 
went  in,  an*  I  rolled  in  'em.  There  was  so  many 
it  didn't  make  no  difference,  my  rollin'.  I  rolled 
over  and  over,  an'  laughed  till  I  cried,  an'  I  'urt 


JIM  AND  HIS  SOUL  a> 

my  ead,  but  I  didn't  know  it,  I  was  that  'appy.  I 
think  that  wood  knowed  I  was  'appy,  for  there 
was  birds  singin'  everywhere  all  the  time  I  rolled. 
'Twas  the  'eavenliest  roll  I  ever  'ad.  I  could 
smell  them  flowers  in  my  clothes  for  a  week  arter. 
I'm  goin*  to  save  up,  an'  next  Bank  'Oliday  you 
an'  me  '11  go  there  an'  roll." 

The  girl  had  often  heard  the  story,  but  she 
never  tired  of  it.  She  liked  to  think  it  over  in  the 
dull  moments  of  the  day  when  she  was  selling 
nothing.  Then  she  used  to  take  the  delicate 
jonquils  and  violets  from  her  basket,  and  try  to 
imagine  what  sort  of  place  it  was  they  were  born 
in.  When  nobody  was  looking  she  used  to  place 
them  against  her  lips  and  whisper  her  wishes  to 
them,  and  their  purity  comforted  and  refreshed 
her. 

"  Good-bye,"  said  Jim  ;  "time's  up— I'm  off." 

"  Good-bye,"  said  the  girl. 

She  took  a  yellow  jonquil  from  her  basket  and 
gave  it  him.  It  was  like  a  visible  kiss  passed 
between  them.  For  a  moment  all  London  had 
sunk  away  from  them,  and  they  were  simply  two 
human  souls  conscious  of  each  other.  It  lasted 
only  an  instant,  and  the  jonquil  was  its  memorial. 


THE   Bank  Holiday   had  come,  and   with  it  the 
long-deferred  joy  for   which  Jim  and   Annie  had 


22  JIM  AND  HIS  SOUL 

hoped  through  many  a  blazing  July  day.  The 
frugal  pennies  had  accumulated,  and  they  had 
been  invested  in  two  cheap  tickets  to  the  sea. 
They  had  never  seen  the  sea,  and  had  no  notion 
what  it  meant.  They  sat  together  now  on  a  little 
knoll  of  the  downs  and  gazed  at  it  in  speechless 
wonder. 

"  I  didn't  never  know  there  wor  anythink  in  the 
world  as  big  as  that,"  said  Jim.  "  An'  I  never 
knowed  there  was  so  much  sky  anywhere, 
neither ! " 

"That's  'cos  you  don't  see  it  all  together  any- 
where in  Lunnon,"  said  the  girl  philosophically. 
"  It's  split  up  into  little  bits." 

"  It  makes  me  frightened  almost,"  continued  the 
girl.  "  It's  so  lovely.  There's  such  a  lot  of  it ! " 

"  I  ain't  frightened,"  said  the  boy,  with  a  fine 
sense  of  valour.  "  I  should  like  to  go  on  it,  I 
should!" 

"  Then  yer  won't,"  she  said  vehemently.  "  I 
ain't  a-going  to  let  yer  ! " 

The  boy  for  answer  put  his  arm  round  her  waist. 
He  had  no  fine  language  to  express  his  love,  but 
he  had  a  keen  joy  of  proprietorship  in  the  girl  all 
the  same.  She  knew  it,  and  shyly  slipped  her 
hand  into  his.  Then  they  sat  quite  silent,  and 
gazed  upon  the  sparkling  wonder  of  the  sea  again. 

Far  away  into  boundlessness  spread  the  vast 
level  fields  of  azure,  streaked  here  and  there  with 


JIM  AND  HIS  SOUL  23 

patches  of  green  and  purple,  like  a  finely  varie- 
gated marble.  The  sun  beat  upon  it,  till  it  seemed 
to  give  back  from  its  depths  an  answering  light. 
Far  to  the  southward  lay  a  long  range  of  clouds, 
dark  at  the  base,  but  piled  up  in  white  masses  at 
the  summit,  and  over  the  snowy  bosses  of  these 
immaterial  Alps  grey  stains  of  vapour  slowly 
floated,  and  seemed  to  hang  in  their  cloven  hollows. 
The  whole  vast  range  moved  nearer  also  by 
slow  degrees,  and  presently  a  gust  of  wind  ran 
across  the  downs,  and  shook  the  leaves  of  the 
neighbouring  hedges  with  a  sigh.  From  the 
moment  that  this  first  faint  breath  of  wind  began, 
a  rapid  change  passed  over  sea  and  sky.  The  sea 
turned  from  azure  to  a  livid  grey,  and  the  sky 
bowed  down  to  meet  it  Long  thin  scarves  of 
cloud  travelled  swiftly  across  the  heavens,  and  the 
sun  disappeared  behind  them.  Then  a  deep  hollow 
sound  rolled  up  out  of  the  sea,  and  fell  upon  the 
ear  in  volleys,  which  every  moment  became  clearer 
and  more  rapid.  There  was  a  storm  brewing,  and 
the  clouds  were  labouring  up  with  the  stored 
weight  of  thunder.  The  girl  picked  up  the  few 
field-flowers  that  she  had  gathered  in  the  lane 
leading  to  the  downs,  just  as  the  first  warm  drops 
of  rain  began  to  fall.  The  town  lay  a  mile  away, 
and  the  railway  station  half  a  mile  beyond  the 
town.  Long  before  they  reached  it  the  storm  was 
on  them,  and  the  rain  came  rushing  down  like  a 


cataract  In  the  station  the  people  stood  in  a 
dense  crowd.  Those  who  had  got  there  first  had 
filled  the  waiting-rooms,  and  the  late  comers  could 
barely  edge  their  way  along  the  unsheltered  plat- 
form. Jim  and  Annie  were  among  the  latest,  and 
stood  holding  each  other's  hands  on  the  very  edge 
of  the  platform.  This  strange  anger  of  the  heavens 
frightened  them,  and  the  thunder  shook  their 
hearts. 

No  one  could  tell  how  it  happened,  for  it  was 
done  in  a  moment.  There  was  an  ugly  sway  of 
the  crowd  as  the  train  came  in,  and  Annie  slipped, 
and  fell  across  the  rails.  In  an  instant  Jim  had 
leaped  to  her  rescue.  He  lifted  her  up,  and  a  score 
of  hands  were  stretched  out  to  pull  her  back  to 
the  platform.  But  he  was  too  late  to  save  himself. 
Before  he  could  spring  out  of  the  way  the  engine 
had  struck  him,  and  the  great  grinding  wheels 
passed  over  him. 

They  bore  him  away  to  the  hospital,  and  Annie 
went  with  him. 

"  He  were  a  plucky  one,  were  that ! "  said  the 
porter,  as  he  laid  a  sheet  over  the  boy,  "nd  drew 
his  hand  across  his  eyes. 

"They  come  down  together,  they  did,"  said  a 
rough  fellow,  eager  to  share  in  the  notoriety  of  the 
disaster.  "'Twere  'is  girl,  I  guess.  I  sat  beside 
'em  in  the  carriage,  I  did." 

The  girl  did  not  hear.     She  limped  along  the 


JIM  AND  HIS  SOUL  25 

street,  with  eyes  that  saw  nothing  but  that  dismal 
stretcher  and  that  which  lay  upon  it.  And  when 
they  reached  the  hospital  she  passed  in  un- 
questioned with  the  tragic  burden. 

VI 

IT  was  very  quiet  in  the  little  hospital,  except  in 
the  accident  ward,  where  sounds  of  stertorous 
breathing  were  heard,  and  now  and  again  a  low 
stifled  cry  of  pain  from  some  sufferer  whose  endur- 
ance had  given  way.  The  windows  were  open, 
and  the  sweet  air  of  the  sea  travelled  through 
them,  and  wandered  softly  up  and  down  these 
unfamiliar  realms  of  suffering.  Close  beside  the 
hospital  was  a  church,  and  on  the  still  evening  air 
the  music  of  its  organ  sounded,  now  loud,  now 
faintly,  in  the  evensong.  The  nurses  often 
thanked  God  for  that  neighbouring  music ;  it 
brought  soothing  and  inspiration  to  their  hearts, 
tired  with  the  burden  of  incessant  service,  strained 
with  the  excess  of  hourly  sympathy  for  forms  of 
pain  which  knew  alleviation,  but  no  remedy.  It 
was  like  a  solemn  assurance  that  all  the  harsh 
discords  of  earth  would  be  resolved  at  length  into 
some  final  harmony ;  that  when  the  long  travail 
of  earth,  of  which  they  knew  so  much,  reached 
its  close,  some  masterhand  pressed  upon  the 
organ-keys  of  the  world  would  strike  the  chord 


26  JIM  AND  HIS  SOUL 

of  peace,  perhaps  of  triumph.  The  church  doors 
were  open,  and  through  them  floated  the  familiar 
music  of  the  evening  hymn,  sung  by  clear  boys' 
voices,  that  dominated  the  scattered  voices  of  the 
congregation,  and  gathered  them  into  a  harmonious 
whole — 

"  Glory  to  Thee,  my  God,  this  night, 
For  all  the  blessings  of  the  light ; 
Keep  me,  O  keep  me,  King  of  Kings, 
Beneath  Thine  own  Almighty  wings." 

For  some  in  that  ward  the  blessings  of  the  light 
would  return  no  more,  and  the  wings  that  stooped 
above  them  were  the  wings  of  death. 

And  of  that  number  was  Jim.  Annie  sat  beside 
the  narrow  white  bed,  and  held  his  hand.  She 
had  not  relinquished  the  little  bunch  of  field- 
flowers  she  had  fastened  in  her  dress  just  before 
the  accident,  and  the  poor  withered  daisies  lay 
upon  the  bed.  The  girl  was  lost  to  all  conscious- 
ness of  her  surroundings ;  her  face  was  pale,  and 
seemed  narrowed,  her  form  looked  more  fragile 
than  ever.  She  did  not  notice  that  at  a  sign 
from  the  nurse  a  screen  was  being  placed  about 
the  bed.  The  nurse  stooped  and  touched  her  on 
the  shoulder.  She  said  softly — 

"  Don't  you  think  you  had  better  go  now  ?  " 

But  the  girl  did  not  move.  The  only  sign  she 
gave  of  having  heard  the  words  was  a  quick, 
nervous  movement  of  the  arm  that  lay  across  the 


JIM  AND  HIS  SOUL  27 

bed,  and  a   tighter  grasp   upon   the  hand  of  the 
dying  boy. 

The  rays  of  the  setting  sun  struck  long  shafts 
across  the  top  of  the  screen ;  the  music  of  the 
hymn  swelled  louder — 

"  Teach  me  to  live  that  I  may  dread 
The  grave  as  little  as  my  bed ; 
Teach  me  to  die  that  so  I  may 
Rise  glorious  at  the  awful  day." 

Then   it   died  away  into  the   tenderness  of  that 
touching  prayer — 

"  Oh  may  my  soul  on  Thee  repose, 
And  may  sweet  sleep  my  eyelids  close." 

Something  stirred  within  the  girl,  some  violent 
reaction  of  feeling,  and  her  quiet  eyes  had  un- 
accustomed fire  in  them. 

"  He  ain't  dyin',  is  he  ?  "  she  cried.  "  He  can't 
be  dyin'!" 

The  nurse  for  answer  passed  her  hand  gently 
over  the  girl's  head. 

"  It's  wicked  to  let  'im  die ! "  she  cried.  "  I 
ain't  got  no  one  else  in  the  world.  An'  we  was 
goin'  to  be  married!" 

The  organ  swelled  out  clamorous  and  strident 
with  the  Doxology  and  Amen,  and  the  nurse  was 
glad  for  the  first  time  in  her  life  that  the  music 
had  ceased.  She  had  never  felt  it  inappropriate 
before. 


28  JIM  AND  HIS  SOUL 

Perhaps  it  was  the  music  roused  the  dying  boy, 
perhaps  the  shrill  voice  of  the  girl  and  her  con- 
vulsive grasp  upon  his  hand.  He  slowly  opened 
his  eyes. 

"  An'  it  were  the  'eavenliest  roll  I  ever  'ad,"  he 
muttered.  "  There  was  flowers  everywhere." 

There  was  a  pause.  Then  he  said  in  a  clear 
voice,  "  No.  87  on  Duty."  His  thoughts  had 
travelled  back  to  his  daily  work,  and  he  had 
uttered  the  formula  of  which  he  had  been  so  proud 
in  the  days  when  he  felt  that  Her  Majesty's  Tele- 
graph Service  owed  everything  to  his  punctuality 
and  diligence.  And  then  his  eyes  closed  for  ever, 
and  in  the  same  moment  the  sun  left  the  ward, 
and  the  twilight  began. 

The  Soul  of  Jim  had  been  freed  and  vindicated. 

No.  87  had  died  on  duty. 


THE    CHILLED   HEART 


The  roar  of  the  streets  at  their  loudest 

Rises  and  falls  like  a  tune  : 
Midday  in  the  heart  of  London, 

Midway  in  the  month  of  June. 
Cod  knows  how  I  yearn  for  the  mountains, 

And  the  river  that  runs  between  ; 
Ah,  well!  I  can  wait — and  the  pastures 

Of  Heaven  art  always  green. 


THE   CHILLED   HEART 

WE  all  knew  him  in  that  crowded  district  of 
small  houses  which  lies  on  the  eastmost 
edge  of  Hoxton — so  urbane  and  gentle  in  his  ways, 
so  dignified  in  his  unacknowledged  poverty.  John 
Paterson  was  a  little  man,  grey  and  shrunk,  who 
would  be  quite  unnoticeable  in  a  crowd  ;  but 
placed  among  half-a-dozen  persons  of  the  small 
shopkeeper  class,  among  whom  his  dignity  would 
have  room  to  exert  itself,  he  was  very  noticeable 
indeed.  The  sort  of  man  who  reveals  himself  only 
on  occasion,  and  chooses  his  occasion  with  intuitive 
penetration ;  the  sort  of  man  who  never  finds 
more  than  one  or  two  friends  in  a  long  life,  and 
is  thought  unsocial  because  he  cannot  sacrifice  on 
every  roadside  altar — chiefly,  however,  by  those 
persons  who  are  content  with  the  tepid  familiari- 
ties of  acquaintanceship,  and  never  know  the 
intimacies  of  a  noble  friendship. 

How  he  ever  came  to  be  the  minister  of  that 
dismal  little  chapel  in  Dagnall  Road  was  a  mystery, 
which,  however,  was  not  without  solution,  as  we 
shall  see.  For  it  was  surely  the  poorest  and 
meanest  place  of  its  kind  which  was  ever  mis- 
Si 


32  THE  CHILLED  HEART 

begotten  of  theologic  separatism  and  sectarian 
ambition.  You  approached  it  by  a  narrow  aperture, 
the  walls  of  which  were  rubbed  into  a  greasy 
glaze  by  the  passing  of  shoulders  innumerable — 
shoulders  of  men  who  wore  stout  Nonconformist 
broadcloth  in  the  palmy  days  of  Dagnall  Road, 
of  matrons  who  wore  stiff  brocade  or  stout  velvet 
woven  on  the  looms  of  Spitalfields  ;  long  since,  like 
the  looms  of  Spitalfields,  covered  with  dust,  and 
given  over  to  forgetfulness.  No  broadcloth  or 
velvet  passed  that  way  now ;  fustian,  on  its  way 
to  Dagnall's  Rents,  which  yawned  in  permanent 
dilapidation  behind  the  chapel ;  on  Sundays,  an 
occasional  tweed  on  the  way  to  the  high,  bare 
pews  of  Dagnall  Chapel.  There  were  tablets  on 
the  walls  of  the  chapel,  sacred  to  the  memory  of 
the  broadcloth  and  velvet  generation  ;  these  alone 
preserved  the  repute  of  the  dismal  and  decayed 
conventicle.  There  was  a  tradition  that  carriages 
had  been  known  to  stop  at  the  gloomy  portico  of 
Dagnall's  Rents ;  but  that  was  merely  the  rumour 
of  a  prehistoric  period.  Within  living  memory 
no  carriage  had  ever  been  visible  in  Dagnall  Road, 
except,  of  course,  the  gloomy  equipages  of  the 
undertaker,  round  which  ragged  children  gathered, 
engaged  in  awestruck,  but  yet  cheerful  anticipa- 
tions of  the  strange  splendours  which  attended 
even  children  when  they  were  dead.  The  tide  of 
life  which  rolled  down  the  Dagnall  Road  was 


THE  CHILLED  HEART  33 

muddy,  like  the  streets  ;  the  chapel  was  merely  a 
battered  hulk— with  memories  of  past  triumphs 
echoing  in  it,  as  the  sea  may  be  supposed  to 
vibrate  still  in  the  timbers  of  the  vessel  whose 
voyages  are  done — a  hulk  left  to  rot  upon  a 
slimy  bank,  over  which  the  living  waters  will  flow 
no  more. 

There  were  hours,  occasional  and  brief,  when 
Dagnall  Road  took  on  an  aspect  of  brightness — 
pathetic,  as  on  spring  mornings  when  its  dinginess 
indulged  in  a  bath  of  sunshine  ;  hilarious,  toward 
eight  o'clock  and  onward,  on  winter  evenings, 
when  the  naphtha  lamps  flared  at  the  costers'  stalls  ; 
washed  with  silver  on  rare  nights  when  the  moon 
turned  the  gleaming  tram-lines  into  a  magic  road, 
leading  to  the  infinite.  But  the  general  aspect  was 
grey,  grey  and  sordid.  Turbid,  too ;  a  tumultuous 
stream,  heavy  with  the  loam  of  humanity,  beating 
its  way  down  the  high-walled  street,  as  a  swollen 
river  in  a  narrow  channel.  Men  shouted,  hoarsely 
competitive  ;  women  shrieked,  in  shrill  bargainings  ; 
children  ran  in  and  out  among  the'  stalls,  like 
jmall  gnomes,  sedulous  in  theft  and  mischief ; 
dogs  barked,  and  the  naphtha  lamps  hissed  and 
bubbled.  Always,  over  all,  there  hung  a  weightier 
sound — a  boom  and  roar  as  of  the  sea,  the  noise 
of  huge  waves,  resonant  and  clangorous.  John 
Paterson  knew  that  roar  well,  and  loved  it.  It 
was  to  him  the  great  orchestra  of  Time,  setting  the 

3 


34  THE  CHILLED  HEART 

rhythm  of  his  simple  life.  It  was  a  large  music, 
which  gave  dignity  to  that  which  was  naturally 
sordid ;  he  was  unconscious  of  poverty  and  a 
narrow  lot  when  that  music  filled  his  heart 

It  needed  something  of  the  kind,  some  sense  of 
the  general  vastness  of  human  destiny,  to  redeem 
such  a  life  as  John  Paterson's  from  absolute  stag- 
nation. He  had  preached  so  often  and  so  long, 
with  no  result  that  was  visible ;  had  poured  out  so 
rich  and  fertilising  a  stream  of  sympathy  on  the 
dull  loam  of  Dagnall  Street,  with  no  sign  of 
quickening  seed  or  answering  harvest.  A  few 
scant  ears,  blasted  by  the  east  wind — that  was  all. 
Old  Thomas  Huckle,  the  hoarse  vendor  of  cheap 
vegetables ;  Jones,  the  quick-eyed  cobbler,  who 
lived  in  two  rooms  at  the  entrance  to  the  Rents, 
and  one  or  two  bed-ridden  pensioners,  who  shared 
the  small  endowments  of  the  chapel — these  loved 
him.  Huckle  blessed  him  out  of  the  back  of  his 
ruined  throat,  and  Jones  had  been  even  known  to 
stop  work  for  a  full  ten  minutes,  for  the  mere 
pleasure  of»looking  him  in  the  face.  There  were 
children,  too,  half  a  score  of  prematurely  ripened 
fruits  of  the  gutter,  sharp-featured  and  sharp- 
flavoured  with  experience  of  the  world ;  these 
grew  human  and  almost  simple  of  heart  beneath 
his  touch.  John  Paterson  came  nearest  td  happi- 
ness when  he  talked  with  these  people.  They 
were  his  friends,  his  true  flock.  He  had  saved 


THE  CHILLED  HEART  35 

Huckle  and  Jones  from  drunkenness  by  saving 
them  from  the  harsh  monotony  of  life.  The 
children  he  had  saved  from  worse  evils,  and  all  by 
that  jet  of  fertilising  sympathy,  or  rather — shall  we 
say  ? — that  soft  dew  of  kindness  which  he  dropped 
silently  upon  their  sterile  little  hearts.  In  his  best 
moments  John  Paterson  told  himself  that  this  was 
worth  living  for,  and  he  was  content. 

In  the  moments  which  were  not  his  best,  when 
the  grey  cloud  hung  above  his  heart,  he  had  his 
resource  in  this  ideal  vastness  of  London,  the  sense 
of  immense  destinies  working  themselves  out 
through  the  turbulence  of  the  great  unquiet  city. 
A  strange  resource  ?  But  a  real  one.  For  he 
could  lose  himself  in  these  roaring  multitudes,  as 
in  a  sea.  Dagnall  Chapel  was  then  as  some  for- 
gotten pool,  tideless  and  reed-choked  ;  he  was  a 
swimmer  in  the  infinite,  and  an  ocean  throbbed 
beneath  him.  When  the  melancholy  fit  came 
upon  him  he  knew  what  to  do,  and  did  it.  He 
sought  the  great  thoroughfares,  and  let  the  tide  of 
life  carry  him  whither  it  would  ;  stood  now  amid 
the  shipping  of  the  Docks,  and  thought  of  the 
strange  sights  which  seamen  had  beheld  from  those 
bare  masts  huddled  in  the  opaque  air  ;  now,  perhaps, 
on  the  pavement  by  the  Bank,  and  thought  of  the 
piles  of  gold  that  lay  behind  those  grimy  walls. 
He  wandered  westward,  keenly  conscious  of  the 
beauty  of  passing  faces,  the  glitter  of  fine  equipages, 


36  THE  CHILLED  HEART 

the  rhythmic  thud  of  horses'  feet  on  the  wooden 
pavements,  and  sometimes  on  the  kneaded  gravel 
of  the  "  Row  "  ;  sat  in  the  Park,  and  felt  the  dignity 
of  those  broad  elms  and  wide,  green  spaces  ;  gal- 
loped in  thought  with  this  or  that  rider,  in  whom 
he  recognised  some  peculiar  grace  or  beauty, 
inventing  fine  romances  all  the  while,  and  dreams 
of  stately  life,  and  satisfied  and  noble  love — and 
for  background  of  it  all  some  fancy  of  lands  which 
he  would  never  see,  the  olive-slopes  of  Bordi- 
ghera,  the  ice  pinnacles  of  Switzerland,  the  orange- 
groves  of  Italy. 

He  imagined  dramas  as  he  walked,  the  history 
of  this  or  that  man  whose  face  arrested  him  ;  or, 
more  frequently,  of  some  woman,  whose  tired 
eyes  seemed  seeking  everywhere  for  something 
never  found  ;  fancied  what  he  would  say  if  she 
spoke  to  him,  whether,  after  all,  he  who  talked 
every  Sunday  of  Divine  secrets,  knew  the  secret 
himself— whether  there  was  any  secret  that  any 
man  could  know.  All  the  while  that  deep  sus- 
pended thunder  of  the  streets  filled  his  heart,  and 
drowned  the  peevish  clamour  of  personal  com- 
plaint. Nothing  mattered  in  such  hours  as  these. 
He  was  nothing  more  than  a  single  bead  of  foam 
drifted  on  the  wide  ocean.  The  largeness  of  the 
world  moved  his  blood,  the  wonder  and  the  mys- 
tery of  life  entranced  him. 

Then,   when    the    lamps   were   lit,   new   fancies 


THE  CHILLED  HEART  37 

came,  and  a  certain  briskness  of  pleasure  thrilled 
his  senses.  All  so  glistening,  so  gay  ;  such  wealth 
carelessly  displayed  in  shop  windows  ;  such  a  blaze 
of  light,  with  here  and  there  oases  of  reticent 
gloom — dim  streets,  like  dark  caverns,  opening 
behind  great  thoroughfares,  where  figures  passed 
at  intervals,  shrouded  and  unsubstantial,  like 
ghosts  of  the  night,  inarticulate  at  the  doors  of 
fairy  palaces — how  wonderful  it  all  was,  how 
infinitely  suggestive  !  Sometimes  he  stood  quite 
still  for  a  while,  only  watching  ;  sometimes  moved 
rapidly,  alert  with  this  strange  life  which  London 
puts  into  dull  hearts.  Then  came  the  vision 
of  the  light  upon  the  clock -tower,  the  mass  of 
stately  buildings  by  the  river,  the  great  figure  of 
Nelson  crowned  with  stars,  and  thoughts  of  past 
and  present,  rapid  mind-pictures  of  Trafalgar,  of 
solemn  men  around  a  scaffold  by  the  Banqueting 
Hall,  of  Blake  borne  up  the  Thames  amid  the 
cry  of  trumpets  to  his  burial  in  Westminster — 
all  the  majesty  and  unexpectedness  of  history,  the 
sense  of  the  meagreness  of  time,  and  the  greatness 
of  the  deeds  which  fill  it.  Late  at  night  he  would 
get  back  to  Dagnal1.  Road,  tired  but  elated.  This 
also,  squalid  Dagnall  Road,  with  flaring  naphtha 
lamps  and  shouting  costers,  was  part  of  this  city 
of  infinite  destinies.  Into  that  vast  tapestry  of 
life  which  is  evermore  patterned  on  the  restless 
loom  of  Time  this  scrap  of  grey  was  also  being 


38  THE  CHILLED  HEART 

inwoven.  Tired  and  elated,  but  once  more  con- 
tent, as  the  swimmer  is  who  at  last  touches  land, 
but  feels  all  the  salt  stir  and  vibration  of  the  sea 
still  beating  in  his  blood. 

He  lived  alone,  and,  as  might  be  expected,  with 
extreme  frugality.  He  had  two  small  rooms,  a 
bedroom  and  a  sitting-room,  each  of  them  full  of 
books.  Any  one  who  had  carefully  examined  his 
books  would  have  found  that  many  bore  the  crest 
of  a  well-known  college  on  their  fly-leaves,  for 
John  Paterson  was  college-bred.  The  books  were 
significant  of  the  man  ;  they  were  mostly  in  good 
editions  of  some  twenty  years  ago — a  little  out 
of  date  now,  but  still  serviceable.  One  would 
have  remarked  also  that  there  were  few  books 
of  any  later  date  than  those  of  twenty  years  ago. 
At  a  glance  the  shrewd  observer  would  have  known 
that  John  Paterson's  life  was  cut  in  twain  by 
that  date :  before  it,  books  such  as  a  man  of 
scholarly  and  fastidious  tastes  rejoices  in,  in  plenty  ; 
after  that,  no  further  purchases.  One  saw,  too, 
that  they  were  not  often  read  nowadays.  Plato 
was  there,  Dante  and  Goethe,  but  dust  lay  on  the 
edges.  To  me,  who  alone  knew  him  with  intimacy, 
he  never  spoke  of  books  or  reading.  An  accent 
of  scholarship  was  in  his  speech,  occasionally  an 
elusive  reference  to  some  immortal  author — but 
that  was  all.  He  looked  round  upon  his  books 
with  obvious  indifference,  with  even  a  touch  of 


THE  CHILLED  HEART  39 

impatience,  as  of  a  man  who  had  discovered  their 
entire  futility  as  warmth  for  a  chilled  heart.  He 
lived  mostly  an  outdoor  life,  jostling  in  and  out 
among  people  to  whom  his  scholarship  could  not 
have  been  of  the  slightest  service  ;  and  one  would 
have  said  that  he  was  anxious  to  forget  both  his 
books  and  the  life  that  lay  behind  them.  They 
were  manifestly  a  bequest  of  brighter  days — a 
bequest  more  painful  by  its  memories  than  pleasur- 
able by  its  gains. 

For  the  extreme  frugality  of  John  Paterson's 
life  there  were  reasons  obvious  and  ample.  There 
was  a  small  endowment  attached  to  the  chapel  of 
some  sixty  pounds  a  year,  of  which  he  was  the 
recipient.  The  scanty  free-will  offerings  of  the 
congregation  added  perhaps  another  forty  pounds 
to  this  sum — certainly  not  more.  Such  was  the 
poverty  of  the  congregation  that  this  total  sum 
was  esteemed  affluence,  and  there  were  those  who 
wondered  how  John  Paterson  could  spend  so  much. 
It  was  a  favourite  topic  of  discussion  between 
Jane  Slump  the  charwoman  and  Matilda  Harris 
the  step-cleaner,  each  of  whom  had  attended  the 
chapel  since  a  remote  youth,  what  the  minister 
did  with  so  much  money,  and  how  very  differently 
they  would  administer  it,  if  it  were  theirs.  But 
it  was  not  John  Paterson's  way  to  let  any  one 
know  how  he  spent  his  income.  There  were  half- 
a-dozen  poor  bed-ridden  creatures  in  Dagnall's 


40  THE  CHILLED  HEART 

Rents,  half-a-dozen  old  men  in  the  lanes  and 
alleys  which  ran  off  from  Dagnall  Road,  who  could 
have  told  a  great  deal  had  they  not  been  deeply 
pledged  to  silence.  John  Paterson  gave  away  at 
least  a  fourth  part  of  his  income.  He  did  it 
quietly  and  secretly,  asking  no  thanks,  and  rarely 
getting  them,  desirous  only  that  the  recipients  of 
his  bounty  should  keep  the  pledge  of  silence  which 
he  imposed  upon  them.  Many  men  have  been 
much  less  secretive  in  the  commission  of  crimes 
than  he  was  in  the  commission  of  charities.  He 
smiled  contentedly  over  the  reputation  of  avarice 
which  had  been  diligently  created  for  him  by  the 
untiring  tongues  of  Mrs.  Slump  and  Matilda 
Harris  ;  he  preferred  being  suspected  of  meanness 
to  being  detected  in  unjustified  generosities. 

In  the  beginning  of  his  pastorate  at  Dagnall 
Chapel  it  had  been  known  that  John  Paterson  had 
a  wife,  but  it  was  understood  that  as  the  income 
was  not  sufficient  for  the  support  of  both,  it  had 
been  mutually  arranged  that  his  wife  should  live 
in  the  country  with  her  friends,  until  such  time 
as  things  improved  with  "  the  cause."  That  was 
ten  years  ago,  when  one  or  two  persons  of  settled 
income  still  belonged  to  the  chapel,  and  some 
sense  of  generosity  was  still  alive  among  the 
people.  They  admitted  that  it  was  hard  to  part 
man  and  wife,  and  in  these  days  Mrs.  Slump 
had  vigorously  denounced  the  arrangement  as 


THE  CHILLED  HEART  41 

"  onnatural  and  hiniqtous."  The  people  had  even 
arranged  a  Bazaar,  the  proceeds  of  which  were 
to  be  handed  over  to  the  new  minister  for  the 
purpose  of  giving  a  respectable  matrimonial  basis 
to  his  pastorate.  The  Bazaar  was  a  triumphant 
success.  Half-a-dozen  ancient  members,  long  since 
removed  to  more  respectable  localities,  had  been 
induced  to  attend,  and  had  spent  at  least  five 
shillings  each.  A  County  Councillor,  whose  father's 
name  was  inscribed  on  the  memorial  tablet  near 
the  pulpit,  had  also  been  present,  and  had  been 
munificent  enough  to  contribute  ten  pounds.  The 
sale  by  auction  on  the  last  day  of  the  Bazaar  had 
entirely  hit  the  temper  of  a  neighbourhood  where 
everything  was  keenly  bargained  for,  and  had 
been  a  time  of  wild  excitement  to  Jane  Slump 
and  Matilda  Harris,  each  of  whom  had  secured 
elaborate  antimacassars  at  a  purely  nominal  rate. 
But  the  professed  purpose  of  the  Bazaar  was  not 
attained.  The  proceeds  were  forty  pounds  ;  and 
the  possession  of  so  much  money  at  once  debased 
the  rectitude  of  the  ruling  deacons.  They  re- 
solved— with  reluctance,  so  they  said — that  there 
were  other  things  more  urgent  than  the  readjust- 
ment of  Mr.  Patcrson's  matrimonial  life.  Paint 
was  needed  for  the  doors,  glass  in  the  windows, 
a  stove  against  the  cold  of  the  winter  months. 
They  argued  that  these  improvements  would 
attract  large  crowds  to  the  ministry  of  the  Word, 


42  THE  CHILLED  HEART 

and  as  crowds  meant  money,  all  would  come  right 
in  the  end  for  the  minister.  John  Patcrson  said 
nothing  whatever  about  this  breach  of  trust.  He 
showed  no  anger,  no  disappointment.  He  never 
by  word  or  manner  reminded  his  deacons  of  their 
broken  promise.  The  stove  and  the  paint  did  not 
bring  the  anticipated  crowd.  The  congregation 
settled  down  to  its  normal  forty  or  fifty.  If  by 
any  chance  a  stranger  appeared  among  them, 
he  came  but  once,  and  was  never  seen  again. 
Perhaps  he  found  the  paint  inartistic,  the  stove 
insufficient.  In  course  of  time  the  existence  of 
Mrs.  Paterson  was  forgotten,  ignored,  put  out  of 
mind,  and  it  was  generally  assumed  that  John 
Paterson  preferred  matters  to  remain  as  they  were. 
Perhaps  he  did  ;  and  those  who  had  seen  Mrs. 
Paterson  on  the  one  occasion  when  she  visited 
the  chapel — viz.,  the  opening  day  of  the  Bazaar — 
might  have  been  excused  for  such  an  inhumane 
conclusion.  She  was  a  tall  woman,  with  a  low, 
broad  brow,  dark  eyes  and  hair,  a  scornful  mouth, 
a  haughty  carriage.  She  looked  round  the  dingy 
room,  with  its  damp-stained  walls  only  partially 
disguised  under  draperies  of  red  twill  and  paper 
rosettes,  with  bold,  resentful  eyes.  Her  scorn 
included  the  poverty  of  the  people  too ;  to  the 
County  Councillor  only  did  she  deign  to  speak. 
Her  attitude  to  her  husband  was  curious.  Of 
obvious  intention  she  avoided  him,  standing  near 


THE  CHILLED  HEART  43 

the  door,  aside  from  the  stream  of  people,  her 
dark  eyes  very  bright,  her  face  pallid.  When 
her  eyes  met  her  husband's  they  shrank,  and 
her  pallor  deepened.  When  he  spoke  to  her  one 
could  see  a  shudder  run  through  her,  and  could 
mark  her  emotion  in  the  quickened  heave  of  her 
bosom,  the  trembling  of  her  lips.  There  was 
supplication,  too,  in  her  manner,  a  sudden  collapse 
of  hauteur  into  humility  at  the  sound  of  his  voice, 
a  flash  of  anger  in  the  eyes  as  the  lids  dropped 
over  them,  resentment  and  appeal  mingled  like 
fire  and  tears — something  at  once  confusing, 
pathetic,  inexplicable. 

The  moment  he  left  her  her  figure  regained  all 
its  pride  of  pose,  its  rigidity,  its  combative  energy  of 
aspect ;  as  he  reapproached  her  the  proud  shoulders 
sunk,  the  proud  face  softer! ed.  All  that  day,  across  the 
babel  of  the  room,  the  eyes  of  this  separated  man 
and  wife  challenged  each  other,  and  the  victory 
was  always  with  the  man.  When,  at  last,  the 
day  was  over,  she  departed,  with  a  certain  broken- 
ness  of  aspect,  as  of  one  who  had  undergone  a 
bitter  penance  and  survived  it  She  went  one 
way,  he  another.  It  was  the  first  and  only  time 
that  she  was  ever  seen  in  Dagnall  Chapel. 

There  it  might  have  ended,  and  the  existence 
of  a  Mrs.  Paterson  have  dropped  wholly  out  of 
mind,  and  the  clue  to  John  Paterson's  life  have 
remained  undiscovered,  but  for  the  circumstance 


44  THE  CHILLED  HEART 

which  occasions  the  writing  of  this  record.  It 
was  in  this  tenth  year  of  his  residence  in  Dagnall 
Road  that  all  at  once  the  clasped  book  of  John 
Paterson's  life  fell  open,  and  I  came  to  know  his 
secret. 

For  in  this  tenth  year  certain  changes  occurred 
which  greatly  altered  the  prospects  of  the  decayed 
chapel.  Leases  fell  in,  by  which  the  endowment 
was  trebled  in  amount  ;  the  genius  of  street  im- 
provement invaded  Dagnall  Road,  and  houses 
were  pulled  down,  which  gave  the  long  obscure 
chapel  a  frontage  to  the  main  thoroughfare. 
There  was  no  longer  a  grease-polished  passage 
as  the  one  means  of  approach ;  the  sea  had  come 
back  to  the  stranded  hulk,  and  the  tide  of  men 
poured  along  a  broad  pavement  close  to  the  doors. 
John  Paterson  could  safely  count  upon  a  modest 
two  hundred  pounds  a  year,  and  had  no  further 
need  to  live  solitary  and  desolate  in  his  two  narrow 
rooms.  Those  who  remembered  the  one  appear- 
ance of  Mrs.  Paterson  began  to  speculate  eagerly 
upon  the  hour  of  her  new  emergence  from  that 
mysterious  solitude,  known  by  the  generic  term  of 
"the  country."  Jane  Slump  and  Matilda  Harris 
eyed  the  minister  curiously,  watching  for  signs  of 
elation  in  his  manner.  Rumours  began  to  spread 
that  Mrs.  Paterson  would  arrive  in  October,  that 
the  first  Sunday  of  November  was  fixed  for  her 
advent,  that  at  latest  she  would  appear  at  Christ- 


THE  CHILLED  HEART  45 

mas.  There  was  a  peculiar  appropriateness  in 
the  selection  of  Christmas.  This  was,  in  fact,  a 
suggestion  which  could  be  traced  to  the  sense  of 
poetic  fitness  which  existed  in  the  soul  of  Matilda 
Harris,  who  meditated  the  subject  with  tears  in 
her  eyes  as  she  cleaned  steps,  and  found  it  as 
fascinating  as  the  last  story  in  the  Fam  :ly  Herald. 
But  Christmas  came,  and  the  mysterious  wife  did 
not  appear.  John  Paterson  went  in  and  out 
among  his  people  and  said  nothing.  Years  had 
graved  stern  lines  about  his  mouth,  and  had 
increased  that  subtle  dignity  which  clothed  him 
like  an  armour — turning  the  edge  of  all  im- 
pertinent curiosity — and  no  one  dared  to  question 
him.  Then,  early  in  January,  when  the  raw  east 
wind  swept  like  a  troop  of  swords  across  the 
desolate  land,  he  was  absent  from  his  work  for  a 
fortnight.  When  he  re-appeared,  the  lines  around 
his  mouth  were  graved  a  shade  deeper,  and  he 
wore  a  wide  band  of  black  upon  his  hat.  And 
then  the  news  spread  that  the  strange  woman, 
with  the  proud,  dark  eyes  and  low  brows,  who 
had  only  once  in  those  ten  years  visited  the  scene 
of  her  husband's  work,  was  dead. 

The  news  spread,  as  news  does ;  but  it  was  not 
helped  by  any  single  word  from  John  Paterson. 
All  that  his  congregation  knew  of  the  matter  was 
derived  from  inference.  They  observed  the  black 
band  upon  the  hat,  the  worn  face,  the  sombre 


46  THE  CHILLED  HEART 

glance  ;  the  silent  tragedy  was  as  clear  to  them  as 
though  the  coffin  and  the  face  of  the  dead  woman 
were  actually  painted  on  the  retina  of  his  eyes. 
Perhaps  the  eye  is  not  wholly  an  organ  of  vision. 
Who  shall  say  that  it  is  not  also  a  mirror,  in  which 
the  great  terrors  and  tragedies  of  life  hang  reflected, 
until  the  hour  when  the  wound  in  the  heart  heals 
and  the  memory  forgets  them  ? 

They  knew  also  in  another  way.  On  that 
Sunday  after  his  return  there  was  a  new  note  in  John 
Paterson's  voice,  a  throb  of  feeling  which  com- 
municated itself  to  his  audience.  He  spoke  of 
kindness  to  the  dead,  and  the  lifelong  sorrow  of 
him  who  knows  that  he  has  been  less  than  kind 
while  time  for  love  was  his ;  of  the  duty  of  forgiving 
even  to  seventy  times  seven,  since  there  is  none 
of  us  who  does  not  need  an  infinite  forgiveness 
from  God ;  of  life  itself  as  too  sad  a  thing  to  be 
made  sadder  by  the  foolish  bitterness  of  narrow 
jealousies  and  irrational  animosities.  His  voice 
trembled,  and  that  curious  dignity  of  his  seemed 
transmuted  into  something  higher  still  and  rarer — 
the  awfulness  of  the  prophet.  His  pale  face  and 
deep  blue  eyes  seemed  to  glow;  for  the  first  time 
it  struck  us  that  his  grey  hair  was  a  contradiction, 
and  that  he  was  a  young  man  as  years  go — a  young 
man,  who  had  been  aged  by  sorrow  ;  a  man  who 
in  his  prime  had  been  thrust  by  a  violent  fate  into 
the  shadows  of  age.  As  he  ceased  speaking  the 


THE  CHILLED  HEART  47 

shadows  of  age  came  back  again.  The  glow  faded 
from  the  tired  face,  his  height  seemed  to  contract, 
his  shoulders  to  bend  forward  ;  he  was  once  more 
shrunk  and  grey,  an  unnoticeable  man,  cast  by 
Nature  for  an  obscure  part,  and  content  with  it. 

The  lights  were  out  in  the  chapel,  the  people 
had  gone,  when  an  afterthought  took  me  to  the 
dingy  room  which  was  called  the  minister's  vestry. 
I  knocked  lightly  at  the  door,  and  receiving  no 
reply  opened  it,  and  went  in.  The  room  was  in 
darkness,  save  for  one  small  jet  of  gas,  and  there 
at  the  table  sat  John  Paterson,  with  his  head  bowed 
upon  his  arms.  His  attitude  was  one  of  entire 
prostration,  and  the  shudder  of  the  shoulders  told 
me  that  he  was  weeping. 

As  I  was  about  to  go,  ashamed  of  having  in- 
truded on  his  sorrow,  he  motioned  me  to  sit, 
and  then  he  told  me  his  stoiy. 

Yes,  she  was  dead  ;  and  he  wept  not  so  much  for 
her  death  as  for  the  shame  and  remorse  of  that 
inevitable  thought  which  possessed  him,  that  for 
him  her  death  was  release  from  an  intolerable 
destiny.  Let  the  truth  be  told  at  last ;  she  was  a 
drunkard.  Twice,  in  that  earlier  period  of  his  life 
which  was  unknown  to  us,  he  had  left  a  position 
of  high  responsibility  and  success  because  the 
shame  of  her  weakness  had  overwhelmed  him.  As 
long  as  she  loved  him  he  could  bear  it,  he  could 
hope  to  save  her ;  but  when  at  last  her  love  died 


48  THE  CHILLED  HEART 

his  hope  died  too.  Once  more  he  had  resigned 
his  charge,  and  this  time  had  buried  himself  in  the 
obscurity  of  Dagnall  Road.  His  plans,  his  studies, 
his  ambitions,  had  all  perished  in  that  hour.  He 
was  glad  to  be  poor,  for  that  removed  from  him 
the  temptation  to  summon  back  his  wife  to  him. 
and  once  more  renew  the  struggle  and  defeat  which 
he  had  known  before.  He  was  glad  also  to  be 
among  the  poor ;  for  with  them  the  demand  for 
kindness  was  incessant,  and  in  such  compassionate 
activities  he  could  forget  his  own  smart.  He  had 
brought  her  up  to  the  Bazaar  in  the  hope  that 
they  might  once  more  come  together.  She 
absolutely  refused  to  share  so  mean  a  life.  Proud 
and  bitter  of  spirit,  she  had  wholly  despised  him 
for  reconciling  himself  to  such  a  lot.  Yet  there 
were  hours  when  all  her  past  came  back  upon  her, 
and  then  she  was  softened,  and  wrote  piteous  letters 
to  him.  Again  and  again  after  such  a  letter  he 
had  gone  to  see  her,  hoping  that  at  last  the  crisis 
had  come  ;  but  she  who  could  pour  out  her  best 
self  on  paper  no  sooner  saw  him  than  the  old 
unconquerable  obduracy  of  heart  came  bick.  He 
thanked  God  that  before  she  died  the  heart  of  the 
child,  of  the  lover,  had  been  given  her  again. 
For  a  week  he  held  her  hand  in  his,  and  she  had 
died  with  her  mouth  against  his  lips.  He  had 
been  to  blame.  Had  he  known  better  the  secrets 
of  her  nature  he  might  perhaps  have  saved  her. 


THE  CHILLED  HEART  49 

Yes,  he  saw  things  now — saw  them  as  they  were. 
In  those  other  years,  when  ambition  burned  hot 
within  him,  he  had  been  a  student  intent  on 
brilliant  fame.  He  had  passed  his  days,  and  had 
worked  far  into  the  night,  in  scholarly  pursuits. 
He  had  not  thought  of  her  loneliness — the  lone- 
liness of  a  woman  in  a  house  where  her  husband 
sits  behind  a  locked  door,  a  woman  who  has  no 
child,  no  intellectual  pursuits.  What  had  he  shared 
with  her?  A  mere  fraction  of  his  life.  The  things 
on  which  his  heart  was  set  were  hidden  from  her. 
She  felt  the  deprivation,  was  jealous  of  the  pur- 
poses which  usurped  her  place  in  his  heart.  Yes, 
he  could  dimly  guess  now  how  she  felt,  how  the 
loneliness  deepened,  until  unnoticed  the  vice 
sprang  up  which  slew  her.  Was  it  her  weakness  ? 
It  was  also  his  fault.  Ah,  if  he  could  but  have 
seen  it  so  from  the  first !  Sins — all  sins — need  two 
hearts  for  their  growth  ;  it  needs  the  conspiracy  of 
two  follies  to  make  a  sin.  An  intolerable  destiny  ! 
So  he  had  told  himself,  not  having  sense  to  see 
that  he  had  helped  to  shape  it ;  and  even  with  it 
all  before  him,  with  all  the  memorable  outpourings 
of  that  last  fortnight,  still  the  shameful  thought 
throbbed  in  his  heart  that  her  death  had  removed 
an  incubus  from  his  life,  and  that  it  was  best  as 
it  was. 

As  he  spoke,  he  still  sat  at  the  table,  with  his 
hands  covering  his  face.     The  words  came  slowly, 

4 


50  THE  CHILLED  HEART 

as  though  wrung  out  of  him.  For  some  ten 
minutes  after  he  had  spoken  he  sat  silent,  the  tears 
oozing  between  the  locked  fingers.  Then  he  rose 
quietly,  and  went  out  without  a  word.  He  seemed 
altogether  unconscious  of  my  presence. 

The  next  Sunday  came,  and  with  it  all  trace  of 
emotional  crisis  in  John  Paterson  had  disappeared. 
His  sermon  was  exactly  the  sort  of  sermon  which  he 
had  preached  at  any  time  during  the  last  ten  years 
— simple,  plain,  practical.  That  new  note  in  his 
voice — the  mellow  vox-humana  of  the  heart — was 
never  heard  again.  That  flame  of  intense  feeling, 
which  had  made  his  face  glow,  burned  no  more. 

He  took  up  his  life  again  with  stubborn  re- 
solution, stolid  courage  ;  went  in  and  out  among 
the  byeways  of  Hoxton  working  good  with  auto- 
matic diligence  ;  gave  much,  did  much,  saw  strange 
tragedies,  helped  sordid  miseries,  and  became 
better  known  than  ever  as  a  wise  man  in  the 
hour  of  difficulty,  a  kind  man  in  the  hour  of 
sorrow.  His  books  stood  dusty  and  unopened 
as  before ;  his  aversion  from  study  was  complete, 
though  no  man  was  more  deeply  learned  in  the 
book  of  human  life.  Perhaps  it  was  because  he 
knew  so  much  of  life  that  he  cared  so  little  for 
books.  What  had  Goethe  to  tell  him?  Dante? 
Plato?  He  moved  amid  the  play  of  forces  of 
which  they  wrote,  touched  the  living  essences 
which  they  described.  His  Inferno  was  in 


THE  CHILLED  HEART  51 

Dagnall  Road,  his  Faust  was  acted  out  in  bar- 
barous grossness  round  about  him — sometimes, 
too,  in  subtler  fashion  in  his  own  soul.  He 
had  hopes  that  of  his  life,  as  of  Faust's,  the 
final  angelic  verdict  might  be  saved,  but  he  was 
not  sure.  He  sometimes  had  visions  of  a  better 
Republic  than  Plato's,  which  was  being  slowly  built 
up  out  of  the  chaos  of  things  ;  but  of  this  aho 
he  was  not  sure.  He  toiled  amid  the  roar  of 
muddy  tides  at  the  foundations,  and  often  had  no 
faith  to  see  the  finished  pinnacles.  Such  thoughts 
as  he  had  on  such  subjects  he  kept  to  himself; 
he  knew  them  to  be  beyond  the  scope  of  the 
depressed  and  draggled  remnant  who  heard  him 
preach.  Now  and  again  they  flashed  like  a  throb 
of  flame  through  the  monotony  of  his  words,  and 
his  poverty-stricken  flock  had  the  sense  that  there 
was  a  man  behind  the  mask  of  that  grey,  shrunk 
figure  in  the  pulpit,  whom  they  did  not  know,  and 
who  could  not  be  known  by  them.  What  they 
needed  most  was  the  applied  compassion  of 
practical  help  ;  and  such  help  John  Paterson  gave 
them  lavishly. 

When  the  burden  became  too  heavy,  he  fell 
back  upon  his  former  remedy ;  he  took  refuge 
in  the  elemental  vastness  of  London.  He  walked 
eastward,  westward ;  watched  the  unlading  of 
ocean  steamers  in  the  Docks,  went  up  the  river 
on  a  penny  boat,  with  eyes  fixed  upon  the  vast 


52  THE  CHILLED  HEART 

curves  of  the  shores  ;  imagined  the  hum  of  men  in 
those  long  lines  of  warehouses  and  factories  to  the 
south,  the  throb  of  organs  in  St.  Paul's  and 
Westminster  on  the  other  bank.  He  fancied  him- 
self with  Wren  upon  the  great  dome,  when  the 
last  touch  of  gold  was  laid  upon  the  cross,  with 
Burke  when  he  came  out  of  Westminster  Hall, 
after  the  triumph  of  his  great  speech  for  the 
indictment  of  Warren  Hastings.  He  said  to 
himself,  as  the  boat  hovered  under  St.  Stephen's, 
"  Perhaps  Gladstone  is  speaking  now  "  ;  as  it  beat 
its  way  against  the  brown  tide  at  Chelsea,  "  Ah, 
there,  somewhere,  Carlyle's  pen  is  creating  some- 
thing as  enduring  as  the  stones  of  Wren."  In  the 

o  o 

grey  afternoon  he  saw  the  dingy  wharves  and 
warehouses  dissolve  in  purple  haze,  becoming 
dignified  and  lovely  for  a  little  space,  like  a  vaster 
Venice  sprung  suddenly  from  the  churning  waters, 
and  hanging  unsubstantial  as  a  dream  upon  the 
formless  skies.  Through  the  opaque  evening  he 
saw  the  bridges  stretched  like  ropes  of  fire  above 
the  water,  and  passing  over  them  spectral  forms, 
hurrying  illuminations,  and  the  sinuous  blaze 
of  lighted  trains.  Like  an  enormous  instrument 
of  music  London  lay,  with  its  streets  stretched 
from  north  to  south,  from  east  to  west,  as 
vibrant  wires,  touched  and  swept  by  the  hands  of 
giant  destinies.  That  large  music  entered  into  his 
soul,  as  it  had  always  done,  and  composed  its 


THE  CHILLED  HEART  53 

discords.  The  very  contact  with  such  multitudi- 
nous and  various  life  infected  him  with  vitality,  and 
instructed  him  in  a  certain  spacious  charity. 

He  learned  at  last  the  rare  and  difficult  art  of 
being  charitable  to  himself;  of  hoping  that  in 
some  way  his  own  poor  life  fitted  in  with  some 
general  and  gracious  purpose ;  and  that,  therefore, 
his  own  hopes  and  sorrows  were  of  small  account, 
and  not  to  be  considered,  in  the  evolution  of 
society.  It  was  something,  in  so  vast  a  scheme  of 
things,  to  have  the  smallest  place,  and  Dagnall 
Road  grew  tolerable,  hospitable.  It  was  some- 
thing to  take  the  humblest  part  in  such  a  battle, 
and  he  fought  as  one  for  whom  the  day  is  short, 
the  night  imminent.  Of  that  night  he  had  many 
thoughts,  mostly  hopeful,  none  fearful ;  but  the 
dominant  one  was  that  when  it  came  he  would  be 
glad  to  rest. 

Of  that  great  sorrow  of  John  Paterson's  life 
there  was,  however,  one  open  record.  Close  to 
the  pulpit,  and  almost  hidden  from  general  sight, 
he  had  a  small  white  marble  slab  placed,  which 
bore  two  words  only — Peccavi  t  Miserere  ! 

He  and  I  knew  what  they  meant — no  one  else. 
He  did  not  intend  that  any  others  should,  and  there- 
fore he  concealed  his  confession  in  the  hospitable 
obscurity  of  what  is,  and  is  likely  to  remain,  in  the 
plainest  sense,  a  language  both  dead  and  meaning- 
less to  the  minds  of  Dagnall  Road. 


THE    MUSIC    OF    THE    GODS 


55 


Who,  of  knowledge,  by  hearsay, 
Reports  a  man  upstarted 
Somewhere  as  a  god, 
Hordes  grown  European-hearted^ 
Millions  of  the  wild  made  tame 
On  a  sudden  at  his  fame  ? 
In  Vishnu-land  what  Avatar? 


THE    MUSIC    OF    THE    GODS 

I  HAD  picked  him  up  the  night  before  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Leicester  Square,  and  the 
instinct  of  old  friendship  had  asserted  itself.  For  I 
had  known  Jack  Boynton  in  the  old  Balliol  days, 
when  great  things  had  been  expected  of  him,  and, 
as  'Varsity  estimates  go,  great  things  had  really 
been  done  by  him.  He  had  always  exercised  over 
me  a  curious  fascination.  No  finer  picture  of  youth 
could  be  conceived  than  Boynton  as  he  then  was, 
for  he  had  the  head  of  a  Greek  god,  compact  and 
yet  massive,  with  close  rings  of  bright-coloured  hair, 
a  low,  broad  brow,  eyes  blue  and  deep,  and  of 
singular  brilliancy,  and  a  frame  which,  in  its  close- 
knit  grace  and  virility,  answered  to  the  dignity  and 
charm  of  the  face.  How  it  was  that  he  had  fallen 
out  of  the  race  no  one  knew.  He  was  not  very 
careful  about  the  moralities,  it  is  true,  but  he  had 
never  been  involved  in  any  sort  of  scandal.  He 
had  even  at  one  time  seemed  to  have  religious 
tendencies,  for  he  had  ostentatiously  mounted  a 
large  ivory  crucifix  upon  his  mantel-shelf,  which, 
however,  appeared  ironically  out  of  place  between 

37 


58  THE  MVS7C  OF  THE  GODS 

two  small  bronzes  of  the  Dancing  Faun  and  a 
naked  Apollo.  All  at  once  he  had  disappeared 
from  the  university,  and  left  no  trace.  There  were 
rumours  of  foreign  travel,  and  there  was  a  general 
belief  among  us  that  our  "  Waring  "  would  turn  up 
some  day  in .  some  new  effluence  of  genius  and 
glory. 

"O,  never  star 
Was  lost  here  but  it  rose  afar," 

we  said  to  one  another  when  we  named  him.  But 
years  had  passed,  no  word  had  come,  and  he  had 
slowly  slipped  out  of  memory.  Judge,  then,  the  thrill 
that  shot  through  me  when,  on  rounding  the  east- 
most  corner  of  Leicester  Square  on  a  hazy  October 
evening,  I  found  myself  face  to  face  again  with 
Jack  Boynton. 

But  it  must  be  confessed  that  the  thrill  had  more 
of  surprise  in  it  than  pleasure,  for  the  merest  glance 
revealed  strange  changes  in  him.  He  wore  a  rough 
blue  cloth  jacket,  such  as  sailors  wear,  a  woollen 
collar,  and  a  silk  handkerchief  loosely  knotted 
at  his  throat.  His  clothes  were  worn  and  stained, 
and  his  hat  was  a  rusty  billycock.  The  intense 
youthfulness  of  his  face  and  the  close  rings  of 
bright  hair  remained,  however,  and  his  eyes  had  all 
the  old  quick  light,  and  were  as  bright  as  ever.  At 
first  he  seemed  pleased  to  see  me,  then  suddenly 
he  became  apathetic.  I  could  not  do  less  than 


THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS  59 

ask  him  to  dine  with  me  the  next  night,  and 
he  assented  with  some  show  of  cordiality,  which, 
however,  struck  me  as  slightly  overacted.  He 
insisted  also  on  naming  the  place  and  hour.  The 
place  was  a  little  Italian  restaurant  of  which  I 
had  never  heard,  and  the  time  was  to  be  two 
hours  before  midnight  It  seemed  a  curious  whim, 
but  Boynton  had  never  done  anything  after  an 
orthodox  fashion,  and  rny  desire  to  know  more 
about  him  made  me  jump  to  his  humour  without 
a  second  thought.  So  here  we  found  ourselves, 
face  to  face  at  a  little  table  in  a  long  narrow 
room,  eating  an  excellent  dinner  at  the  unusual 
hour  of  ten  P.M. 

The  first  part  of  the  meal  passed  in  unnoticeable 
dulness,  with  few  words,  and  those  of  the  most 
commonplace  description.  I  had  ample  time  to 
observe  the  dingy  room  with  its  foreign  aspect 
and  swart  waiters,  one  of  whom  especially  attracted 
me  by  his  Ligurian  grace  and  suppleness.  Now 
and  then  among  modern  Italians  one  meets  a  man 
of  the  pure  antique  mould,  who  bears  upon  him  the 
stamp  of  a  vanished  stateliness,  and  whom  one  could 
easily  conceive  as  having  led  a  legion  and  marched 
with  Caesar.  This  man — Antonio  they  called  him — 
had  such  an  air,  and  in  the  swift  grace  and  dignity 
of  his  movements  resembled  Boynton,  though  he 
was  of  heavier  build,  and  dark  as  Boynton  was 
fair.  It  was  to  Antonio  that  Boynton  gave  all  his 


60  THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS 

orders,  and  they  were  received  with  a  curious  excess 
of  deference,  which  amounted  almost  to  reverence. 
Toward  the  close  of  the  meal  Antonio  appeared 
with  a  small  ill-shaped  bottle  of  wine,  unlike  any- 
thing which  I  had  ever  seen  before.  The  bottle  was 
deeply  crusted  with  a  reddish  substance,  so  that  it 
appeared  to  be  fashioned  of  earthenware  rather 
than  glass,  and  bulged  at  the  base  into  a  form 
resembling  a  globe.  The  neck  was  long  and  thick, 
and  had  scored  upon  it  certain  curved  lines,  which 
had  the  appearance  of  a  snake.  As  soon  as 
Antonio  noticed  my  eyes  upon  the  bottle  he 
hastily  knotted  a  napkin  round  it,  in  so  dexterous 
a  fashion  that  it  was  completely  concealed.  He 
seemed  agitated,  and  his  hand  shook  as  he  poured 
the  wine,  and  in  Boynton's  eyes  there  was  some 
trace  of  the  same  agitation. 

The  wine  itself  was  of  the  purest  golden  hue  I 
ever  saw.  It  held  the  light  in  an  extraordinary 
fashion  ;  every  drop,  as  it  fell,  was  a  topaz,  and  from 
the  glass,  when  it  was  filled,  there  seemed  to  be 
emitted  an  actual  radiance,  a  sunny  effluence,  which 
appeared  to  cast  shadows  on  the  white  napery  of 
the  table.  Boynton  raised  the  precious  liquor  to 
his  lips  slowly,  and  with  a  certain  awe  as  it  seemed 
to  me.  What  my  own  feelings  were  I  can  hardly 
determine,  but  certainly  no  such  divine  flavour  had 
I  ever  felt  upon  the  palate.  It  had  the  essence  of 
all  the  flowers  of  the  world  in  it,  and  the  warmth 


THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS  61 

of  a  thousand  suns.  Its  subtle  glow,  passing  along 
nerve  and  vein,  seemed  to  liberate  every  power  of 
thought  and  fancy,  and  to  produce  a  delicious  sense 
of  youth.  On  Boynton  the  effect  was  instanta- 
neous. His  face,  with  its  pure  Greek  outlines,  which 
hitherto  had  been  impassive  and  almost  sullen, 
began  to  glow  as  though  it  were  illumined,  and 
each  ring  of  his  yellow  hair  seemed  a  curved  flame, 
soft  and  delicate,  like  the  lambency  of  an  aureole.  I 
am  aware,  even  as  I  write  the  words,  how  incredible 
and  absurd  they  will  appear ;  but  I  can  only  set 
down  my  impressions  as  they  actually  occurred  to 
me  at  the  time,  and  I  can  find  no  better  phrase 
in  which  to  record  them.  I  do  not  know  now,  and 
I  shall  never  know,  how  these  things  happened,  or 
what  miraculous  liquor  this  was  of  which  I  drank ; 
but  I  cannot  be  deceived  as  to  its  effects. 

With  the  glow  of  the  wine  came  the  full  tide 
of  speech,  and  in  a  few  moments  we  were  each 
pouring  out  eager  talk.  Our  thoughts  ranged 
hither  and  thither  in  fanciful  inconsequence,  glanc- 
ing upon  a  score  of  subjects,  with  a  sort  of  fugitive 
brilliancy.  Presently  I  found  myself  repeating  the 
lines  of  Browning  which  I  had  so  often  applied  to 
Boynton — 

"  O,  never  star 
Was  lost  here  but  it  rose  afar ! " 

"Truer  than  you  think,"  said  Boynton  gravely. 
"  The  impermanence  which  poets  attribute  to  man 


62  THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS 

is  a  pious  fiction.  We  are  the  only  permanent  and 
immutable  creatures  on  the  earth.  We  sink  here — 
we  rise  afar  ;  just  so.  That  was  no  doubt  what 
Browning  meant,  though  he  did  not  express  it 
very  clearly." 

"  Metempsychosis,  I  suppose  you  mean,"  said  I. 
"  We  have  all  been  other  people,  and  have  lots  of 
new  incarnations  before  us." 

"No,  not  that,"  he  replied.  "That's  a  barren 
notion.  W'ho-  wants  to  be  anybody  else  ?  I  mean 
that  you  and  I  have  really  existed  for  thousands 
of  years.  I  know  I  have,  anyway. 

4"I  have  been  many,  yet  inexorably 
In  each  myself  alone ;  in  ages  gone 
I  marched  with  Xerxes,  fell  at  Marathon, 
Saw  Carthage  burn,  and  Alexander  die,'  * 

he  recited  gravely. 

We  were  silent  for  a  moment ;  then  he  said 
with  a  sudden  change  of  manner,  "  Now  I  know 
very  well  what  you  are  thinking  about  You 
naturally  want  to  know  what  I  have  been  doing 
with  myself  since  the  old  Balliol  days.  Oh,  don't 
deprecate  your  curiosity  ;  it's  a  natural  and  whole- 
some sort  of  inquisitiveness.  Well,  if  you  don't 
mind  listening,  I'll  take  up  the  wondrous  tale. 
It's  not  likely  we  shall  meet  again  for  some  years, 
and  you  were  always  a  good  listener." 

Then  he  began. 

**•»*• 


THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS  63 

"There  are  few  persons  who  have  not  had  on 
rare  occasions  the  curious  sense  of  having  been 
in  a  place,  or  looked  upon  a  scene  before.  It  is 
quite  a  common  experience,  though  the  impression 
is  usually  so  fugitive  that  it  passes  almost  before 
we  are  aware  of  it.  In  the  case  of  a  locality  or 
of  scenery  there  is  nothing  astonishing  in  such 
an  impression.  After  all,  places  and  scenes  have 
little  to  differentiate  them  :  all  towns  are  strongly 
reminiscent  of  one  another,  and  so  is  scenery.  A 
Scotch  sea-loch  and  a  Norwegian  fiord  are  so  much 
alike  that  the  dullest  mind  needs  no  jogging  to 
perceive  the  resemblance  ;  and  so  there  are  groups 
of  buildings  in  a  town,  or  combinations  of  scenery 
in  a  country,  which  so  far  follow  a  pattern  that 
one  may  readily  fancy  that  he  has  actually  been 
in  these  places  before.  These  things  are  arranged 
in  an  endless  series  of  replicas.  It  is  by  no  means 
wonderful  that  occasionally  the  replica  suggests 
the  original,  and  is  confused  with  it 

"  Now  I  only  mention  this  because  it  is  a  con- 
venient preface  to  my  story,  and,  as  you  will  see, 
an  apposite  one.  Have  you  ever  had  this  same 
curious  sense  of  familiarity  in  reading  a  book  ?  I 
don't  mean  that  you  think  you  have  read  it  before, 
but  that  something  in  it  sets  a  fibre  throbbing  in 
the  imagination,  and  for  a  moment  or  two  you 
live  in  the  scene  it  pictures. 

"  Well,  this  is  what  happened  to  me.     It  was  a 


64  THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS 

dreary  November  afternoon,  and  I  was  sitting  in 
my  snug  room  at  Balliol,  reading  in  a  desultory 
fashion.  I  forget  now  entirely  what  it  was  I  was 
reading,  but  I  have  an  impression  it  was  Theocritus. 
All  at  once  a  passage  in  the  old  poet  arrested  me. 
The  lines  went  ringing  through  my  brain  with  an 
extraordinary  insistence,  and  in  a  moment  I  was 
conscious  of  a  change  of  atmosphere,  as  though  I 
had  passed  swiftly  through  a  strong  draught  of 
cold  air,  as  a  man  might  take  a  header  into  an 
icy  stream.  The  next  moment  I  emerged  into 
another  world.  It  was  full  of  sunlight,  and  a 
sound  of  flutes,  faint  in  the  distance,  breathed  upon 
the  warm  air.  There  were  hills  of  a  soft  bluish- 
grey,  and  a  wine-coloured  sea  ;  a  green  plain  with 
oaks  and  laurels  negligently  grouped  ;  and  close 
at  hand  a  small  pillared  temple,  in  a  grove  of 
cypresses.  In  the  dark  heart  of  the  cypresses 
human  voices  seemed  to  be  sighing,  and  a  profound 
sadness  fell  upon  me.  In  the  open  air  stood  a  low 
altar,  and  on  it  lay  a  wolf,  his  bristling  jaws  red 
with  blood,  and  his  gaunt  flanks  stiffened  in  death. 
Garlands  of  flowers  hung  upon  the  altar,  and  a 
wreath  of  laurel  was  fastened  over  the  doorway 
of  the  temple.  While  I  looked,  the  sound  of  the 
advancing  flutes  became  clearer,  and  in  an  instant 
a  procession  of  white-robed  youths  and  maidens 
slowly  defiled  up  the  alley  of  the  cypress-grove, 
and  approached  the  temple.  Until  that  moment 


THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS  65 

I  had  been  conscious  of  no  change  in  myself; 
now  I  was  suddenly  aware  of  a  rough  cloak  or 
toga  of  tawny  skin  which  hung  upon  my  shoulders, 
and  also  that  I  wore  sandals,  and  had  a  curiously 
primitive  stringed  instrument  in  my  hand.  The 
moment  the  procession  saw  me  it  halted  ;  a  look 
of  awe  and  gladness  was  on  each* face  ;  the  sound 
of  the  soft  fluting  ceased,  and  all  knelt 

"  I  began  to  touch  the  strings  of  my  curious 
lyre,  and  to  sing  some  soft  Greek  words,  the  mellow 
vowels  of  which  alone  made  music,  and  a  sort  of 
ecstasy  seized  me.  I  shuddered  with  a  strange  joy, 
and  the  human  voices  in  the  cypresses  ceased  to 
sigh,  and  went  like  a  wind  of  sound  in  and  out 
among  the  strings  of  the  lyre.  Then  suddenly 
the  whole  scene — grey  hills,  wine-coloured  sea, 
procession,  and  temple — began  to  grow  dim,  as 
though  one  passed  a  wash  of  grey  over  a  water- 
colour.  I  had  again  the  sense  of  passing  through 
a  great  draught  of  cold  air — and  there  I  sat  in  my 
room  at  Balliol.  I  had  not  been  asleep  ;  I  knew 
that  because  I  still  held  the  book  in  my  hand, 
within  a  foot  and  a  half  of  my  face.  Had  I  slept 
the  relaxed  muscles  would  have  dropped  it.  So 
far  as  I  could  judge,  I  had  been  unconscious  about 
a  quarter  of  an  hour.  I  was  very  cold,  and  it  was 
some  time  before  the  circulation  fully  revived. 
Otherwise,  I  was  none  the  worse  ;  indeed,  upon 
the  whole,  I  was  conscious  of  a  sort  of  spiritual 

5 


66  THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS 

elation,  a  certain  vital  glow,  and    a  sense  of  the 
delightfulness  of  being  alive. 

"  Of  course  it  goes  without  saying  that  I  was  a 
good  deal  impressed  by  this  strange  experience, 
though,  after  a  week  or  two,  the  impression  began 
to  die  away.  I  was  inclined  to  think,  upon  reflection, 
that  the  whole  thing  might  be  accounted  for  as 
some  subtle  sort  of  epileptic  seizure.  I  remembered 
how  Coleridge  dreamed  the  poem  of  Kubla  Khan. 
I  discerned  the  resemblance  in  my  experience.  I 
even  tried  to  repeat  it.  Half-a-dozen  times  I  sat 
in  the  dusk  with  one  of  the  old  Greek  poets  in  my 
hand,  expecting  this  blissful  france  to  overtake  me, 
but  nothing  happened.  I  noticed,  however,  one 
curious  difference  in  myself.  I  can  describe  it  in 
no  better  way  than  to  say  that  a  sort  of  aloofness 
possessed  me,  a  dislike  of  my  fellows,  a  sense  of 
something  alien  in  my  environment.  You  re- 
member young  Stockley,  no  doubt,  and  the  par- 
ticular primness  of  his  clothes?  Well,  one  day  I 
met  him  coming  out  of  Christ's,  and  a  whole  stream 
of  ludicrous  thoughts  rushed  through  my  mind.  I 
found  myself  criticising  his  dress,  as  though  I  had 
never  seen  the  masculine  garments  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  before.  I  wondered  what  sort  of 
leg  he  had,  and  pictured  what  a  sorry  figure  he 
would  cut  in  sandals  and  a  toga.  I  examined  him 
carefully,  with  as  disinterested  a  detachment  of 
thought  as  a  savage  might  have  when  he  sees  for 


THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS  67 

the  first  time  the  civilised  man.  The  grey  build- 
ings, the  hurrying  'grads,  a  passing  drayman  with 
his  load  of  barrels,  a  young  girl  with  slim  shoulders, 
a  country  woman,  with  shapeless  figure  muffled  in 
a  coloured  shawl — each  stood  outlined  with  intense 
distinctness  before  my  mind,  and  the  whole  effect 
was  of  something  foreign  and  ludicrous.  I  laughed 
uncontrollably,  and  it  was  the  sound  of  my  own 
laughter  that  brought  me  back  to  common  sense. 
I  found  young  Stockley  looking  at  me  with 
surprise  and  buspicion  written  visibly  upon  his 
stupid  face. 

" '  Oh,  take  it  off,  man,  take  it  off,  for  God's  sake, 
I  was  saying.  '  These  things,  too :  and  these,' 
I  laughed,  pointing  to  his  trousers  and  his  waist- 
coat. '  My  little  man,  you're  really  too  funny  for 
anything.  Where  have  you  lived  ?  What  have 
you  done  to  be  dressed  like  this  ?  What  would 
Daphne,  and  Coronis,  and  Clymene  say  if  they 
could  see  you  ! ' 

"  Stockley  turned  very  red,  and  said  curtly,  '  I 
don't  in  the  least  know  what  you're  talking  about. 
It's  my  conviction  you're  drunk.'  And  the  little 
man  looked  up  into  my  face  with  the  nastiest 
scowl. 

"  At  that  moment  I  suppose  I  regained  my 
modern  self.  I  saw  Stockley  striding  off  in  a  rage, 
and  the  young  girl  looking  at  me  with  a  blush 
upon  her  face.  Of  course,  it  was  only  Stockley 


68  THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS 

and  this  was  Christ's,  and  what  had  I  been  saying 
or  doing  ?  I  began  to  feel  frightened  about  myself. 
Was  I  going  to  be  ill?  I  consoled  myself  with 
a  pull  up  to  Ifflcy,  and  came  back  late  in  the 
afternoon  with  so  vibrant  a  sense  of  glowing 
health,  that  1  had  no  fear  of  illness,  at  any  rate, 
and  was  ready  to  forget  all  the  curious  sensations 
of  the  morning. 

"  For  the  next  four  or  five  months  I  plunged 
into  hard  reading,  and  if  I  thought  of  these  things 
at  all  it  was  only  at  long  intervals,  and  with  the 
sort  of  shame  a  young  man  feels  when  he  suspects 
himself  of  some  physical  peculiarity  or  deficiency. 
Nevertheless  the  sense  of  aloofness  did  not  leave 
me.  I  felt  as  though  my  whole  nature  were  jarred 
in  some  way ;  I  was  not  at  ease  in  my  environ- 
ment, and  I  looked  upon  everything  as  from  a 
distance,  as  one  sees  the  faint  outlines  of  a  city 
and  its  moving  crowds  through  a  mist.  However, 
there  could  have  been  nothing  outrt  in  my  manner, 
for  at  that  time,  I  may  say  without  exaggeration, 
I  was  one  of  the  most  popular  men  in  the  'Varsity. 
Men  sought  my  society,  and  seemed  to  recognise 
me  as  a  leader.  Even  the  dear  old  Master  had 
a  special  liking  for  me,  and  occasionally  dropped 
his  sententious  irony,  and  talked  Greek  mysticism 
and  philosophy  delightfully  to  me.  Of  course 
the  story  about  young  Stockley  had  spread,  but 
it  was  generally  treated  as  the  best  of  jokes. 


THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS  69 

Stockley  was  a  dandified  idiot,  and  every  one  was 
ready  to  laugh  at  him  and  applaud  me. 

"  Well,  as  I  have  said,  I  read  hard  for  four  or 
five  months,  and  over  and  above  my  regular  read- 
ing I  gave  an  hour  or  two  a  day  to  the  Greek 
poets  out  of  pure  pleasure  in  them.  It  was  now 
about  April,  and  the  first  freshness  of  spring  was 
in  the  air.  Between  the  shelter  of  the  high  hedges 
there  was  a  smell  of  violets ;  the  bulbous  candel- 
abra of  the  chestnut-trees  already  had  a  shiny 
look  ;  the  clouds  were  white  and  high,  and  day 
followed  day  with  sunshine  and  west  wind.  One 
day  the  charm  of  the  weather  overcame  me,  and 
I  determined  to  take  full  advantage  of  it  I  took 
train  to  Thame,  and  from  there  walked  over  the 
lovely  range  of  hills  that  runs  behind  Brill.  You 
know  the  country  perhaps  ?  Well,  it  is  exquisite, 
and  never  more  so  than  in  early  spring.  The  hills 
break  at  regular  intervals  into  deep  hollows,  full 
of  trees  ;  you  look  down  into  them,  as  into  vast 
rounded  cups,  overbrimming  with  green.  Before 
you  spreads  the  wide  plain,  grading  through  a 
hundred  tints  of  sage-green  and  opal  to  the  deep 
blue  of  the  horizon.  Along  the  hills  the  air  blows 
fresh  and  pure,  and  on  an  April  day  there  are  a 
hundred  changes  in  an  afternoon — deep  masses 
of  moving  shadow  and  shifting  lights,  that  make 
the  plain  as  elusive  in  its  beauty  as  the  sea,  and  to 
my  mind  much  lovelier. 


70  THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS 

"  I  suppose  I  had  walked  as  nearly  on  the  top 
of  the  ridge  as  I  could  for  about  an  hour,  when 
I  came  to, one  of  these  wooded  fissures  in  the  hills, 
and  was  tempted  by  its  beauty  to  explore  it. 
There  was  a  steep  path,  which  took  me  in  a 
hundred  paces  into  the  wood,  where  fir  and  beech 
trees  were  mingled  in  about  equal  proportions. 
After  entering  the  wood  the  path  began  to  widen, 
until  it  was  a  broad  turf  road,  soft  and  almost 
soundless  to  the  foot.  Suddenly,  as  I  walked,  my 
ear  was  arrested  by  the  sound  of  flutes,  a  soft, 
clear  music,  rising  and  falling  with  the  soughing 
of  the  wind  in  the  trees.  I  held  myself  rigid  at 
once,  remembering  my  former  trance,  and  deter- 
mining to  resist  any  recurrence  of  it  with  all  my 
will-power.  No  doubt  it  was  some  country-boy 
tootling  his  tin-whistle  on  the  way  home  from 
school,  and  the  charm  of  distance  did  the  rest. 
But  I  had  no  sooner  suggested  such  an  explanation 
to  myself,  than  I  repudiated  it.  For  this  music 
was  of  an  altogether  peculiar  softness  and  rhythm, 
and  was  accompanied  by  a  clear  low  chant — well, 
such  as  you  might  hear  in  a  big  scene  at  the 
Lyceum,  a  music  behind  the  stage,  you  know. 
It  hung  in  the  air  and  seemed  to  pervade  it,  and 
there  was  something  in  it  that  overcame  my 
rigidity.  I  became  slowly  conscious  of  a  great 
elation,  my  feet  moved  as  though  they  were  winged ; 
I  felt  a  mingled  buoyancy  and  stateliness  in  my 


THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS  71 

walk.  Now  you  may  call  this  epilepsy  or  what 
you  will,  but  here  is  the  plain  truth.  As  I  moved 
down  this  broad  green  alley  under  the  beech-trees, 
this  is  what  I  saw.  There  was  the  little  pillared 
temple  I  had  seen  six  months  before  in  my  vision  ; 
the  low  marble  altar  on  which  lay  the  dead  wolf ; 
the  white  procession  of  youths  and  maidens 
defiling  toward  the  temple,  moving  in  smiling 
gladness  to  that  rhythmic  thrill  of  soft  pipes,  and 
chanting  some  rich  deep-vowelled  invocation  as 
they  moved.  As  before,  they  knelt  when  they 
saw  me.  Then  I  also  began  to  sing,  and  they 
stood  silent  and  ecstatic,  grouped  in  exquisite 
attitudes  under  the  broad-branched  beeches.  One 
fair  girl,  with  straight  brows  and  violet  eyes, 
stepped  forward  and  offered  me  flowers  with  timid 
hands.  An  old  man,  with  long  white  beard,  then 
poured  some  fragrant  oil  upon  the  altar,  and  a 
thin  flame  arose.  Through  the  trees  there  came 
a  rustling  of  leaves,  and  out  of  the  shadows  bright 
eyes  gleamed,  innocent  and  fearless.  Then  the 
pungent  smoke  from  the  altar  began  to  draw  a 
faint  blue  veil  across  the  scene,  and  the  fluting, 
which  had  commenced  again,  grew  faint  and  fainter, 
and  was  lost  in  distance.  The  air  grew  cold,  and 
I  was  alone. 

"  Now  I  warned  you  that  what  I  had  to  tell  you 
would  probably  be  incredible.  Well,  let  that  be 
as  it  may,  this  is  the  sequel.  It  must  have  been 


72  THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS 

about  four  o'clock  when  I  entered  the  wood  ;  it 
was  seven  when  I  left  it.  When  I  came  to  myself 
— to  my  modern  self,  let  us  say — this  was  what  I 
saw.  The  moon  was  rising,  and  the  sun  had  sunk 
in  a  clear  sky,  so  that  it  was  not  dark.  Close  to 
me  was  a  small  stone  building,  with  Greek  pillars, 
and  a  rounded  roof — probably  a  summer-house 
built  years  ago  by  the  owner  of  the  land,  and 
apparently  of  very  ancient  date.  A  low  marble  seat 
exactly  faced  the  door  of  the  building,  at  about 
the  distance  of  a  dozen  paces.  There  was  nc 
sign  of  man  ;  profound  woods  stretched  on  every 
side  for  not  less  than  two  miles.  The  path  by 
which  I  entered  the  wood  from  the  Brill  hills  I 
could  not  find,  and  it  was  with  difficulty  I  dis- 
covered it  a  week  later  when  I  revisited  the  place. 
I  followed  a  broad  glade,  and  came  out  ultimately 
at  a  little  village  in  the  Aylesbury  valley.  I  had 
no  sense  of  illness,  or  of  shaken  nerves  ;  on  the 
contrary,  I  felt  full  of  the  most  joyous  life.  What- 
ever had  happened  to  me,  it  was  nothing  in  the 
nature  of  disease.  My  mind  never  felt  so  clear 
and  strong,  and  my  success  a  few  weeks  later  in 
the  exams,  is  the  best  evidence  of  my  complete 
sanity. n 

Boynton  stopped  a  moment  in  his  narrative  ; 
his  silence  was  an  interrogation. 

"  Well,  if  you  ask  me  to  speak  quite  candidly,"  I 
said,  "  I  should  say  that  there  is  nothing  incredible 


THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS  73 

in  your  story,  because  it  is  capable  of  the  most 
natural  of  explanations.  You  over-read  and  excite 
your  brain.  In  such  a  state  you  take  a  walk  too 
long  for  you,  and  fall  asleep.  All  the  old  Greek 
pictures  with  which  your  imagination  is  saturated 
weave  themselves  into  a  dream  of  peculiar  vivid- 
ness. True,  you  have  dreamed  it  before,  but  what 
of  that  ?  It  is  by  no  means  uncommon  for  a  man 
to  dream  the  same  dream  over  again  at  various 
periods  of  his  life.  Some  people  dream  the  same 
dream,  or  variations  of  it,  whenever  the  brain  is 
over-excited,  as  you  very  well  know." 

"  Precisely.  That  was  what  I  thought  at  first. 
But  there  are  two  curious  facts  which  I  have  not 
yet  named." 

"Well,  what  are  they?" 

"  One  is  that  after  this  second  vision  the  altera- 
tion in  myself,  which  I  had  previously  noticed, 
became  more  marked.  The  sense  of  aloofness 
grew  upon  me ;  there  seemed  to  be  an  actual 
atmosphere  between  myself  and  my  fellows,  which 
I  could  not  pierce.  I  felt  an  irritation  of  the 
bitterest  kind  in  the  very  presence  of  modern  life. 
All  seemed  inexcusably  colourless,  stupid,  detest- 
able. And  this  feeling  took  a  new  and  strange 
form.  You  remember  my  room  at  Balliol  ?  Well, 
if  you  do,  you  will  recollect  that  on  the  mantel- 
shelf I  had  a  carved  ivory  crucifix,  standing 
between  two  bronzes,  one  of  the  Dancing  Faun 


74  THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS 

and  the  other  of  Apollo.  Well,  when  I  came  back 
from  that  walk  over  the  Chilterns,  the  first  things 
that  caught  my  eye  were  these  three  figures.  I 
looked  at  them  with  an  intensity  of  attention 
which  was  quite  unaccountable,  and  it  seemed  to 
me  that  the  uplifted  arm  of  the  Apollo  was  pointed 
scornfully  at  the  Crucifix,  and  that  in  the  attitude 
of  the  Dancing  Faun  there  was  a  very  abandon- 
ment of  contempt  for  the  still,  sad  Figure  of  sorrow, 
the  mournful  effigy,  that  stood  between  these 
incarnations  of  youth  and  joy.  And  I  shared  the 
contempt.  A  bitter,  unaccountable  resentment 
shook  me,  a  sense  of  some  intolerable  indignity 
and  wrong  inflicted  on  me  by  this  figure  of  the 
Crucified.  I  seized  it  with  hasty  hands,  and  broke 
it  into  fragments,  and  danced  upon  it.  Something 
in  that  figure  of  the  Faun  seemed  to  breathe  an 
incitement  to  motion,  a  compulsion  to  revolt. 
And  suddenly,  as  I  danced,  I  once  more  heard 
that  soft  low  throb  of  flutes,  distinct  and  clear. 
This  was  no  dream,  for  I  was  wide  awake,  dancing 
on  the  fragments  of  my  poor  crucifix,  and  I  heard 
that  rhythmic  flute-music  as  distinctly  as  I  ever 
heard  anything  ia  my  life." 

"  Nerves,  my  dear  fellow,  all  nerves,  I  assure 
you." 

"  But  unfortunately  for  your  theory  I  was  in 
glorious  health.  In  fact,  I  had  never  felt  such 
a  sense  ot  vitality.  It  was  like  a  wine  in 


THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS  75 

my  veins.  I  slept  well,  ate  well,  worked  hard, 
pulled  a  fine  stroke  oar — where  does  your  theory 
of  nerves  come  in  ?  And  besides,  what  should 
produce  this  hatred  of  the  crucifix?  For,  I  may 
as  well  say  at  once,  that  in  that  moment  when  I 
smashed  the  crucifix  I  finally  gave  up  Christianity. 
I  felt  my  whole  mind  revolt  from  it,  once  and  for 
ever.  It  seemed  in  its  very  essence  alien  to  me ; 
in  myself  I  was  aware  of  something  that  could 
never  be  reconciled  with  it.  Most  men  feel  a 
poignant  regret  in  such  a  decision.  I  felt  none. 
I  only  felt  that  in  some  way  I  had  followed  the 
true  bias  of  my  nature,  that  I  had  found  myself. 
I  could  trace  at  the  time  no  sort  of  connection 
between  these  visions  of  mine  and  such  a  decision  ; 
yet  I  felt  that  something  had  happened,  or  was 
happening  in  me,  which  made  such  a  renunciation 
inevitable.  It  had  to  be. 

"  Well,  let  me  pass  on,  and  you  will  see  how 
one  by  one  these  events  fell  into  place,  and  at  last 
explained  themselves. 

"  I  told  you  that  a  week  after  that  strange  ex- 
perience in  the  woods  I  went  back  to  the  place. 
I  had  some  difficulty  in  finding  the  exact  hollow, 
for  along  these  hills  the  wooded  basins  are  much 
alike,  and  I  had  taken  no  very  careful  notes  of  the 
topography.  At  last,  however,  I  found  the  path, 
descended  into  the  wood,  and  after  half-an-hour's 
walk  came  upon  the  spot 


76  THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS 

"  It  was  exactly  as  I  had  pictured  it ;  so  fat 
it  was  no  dream.  At  the  end  of  a  long  glade, 
on  either  side  of  which  rose  tall  beeches,  branched 
into  an  arch  like  the  groined  roof  of  a  cathedral, 
stood  a  curious  stone  building.  It  was  round,  like 
the  pictures  you  see  of  the  temple  of  the  Vestals 
in  the  Forum  at  Rome  ;  its  roof  rested  on  fluted 
pillars  set  at  short  intervals  ;  its  doorway  was  open 
to  the  winds.  Outside,  in  the  bright  sunlight, 
was  the  low  marble  seat  or  altar,  precisely  as  I 
have  already  described  it,  and  I  was  certain,  as 
I  examined  it,  that  the  surface  was  slightly 
blackened  as  by  fire. 

"The  place  was  absolutely  solitary,  and  I  had 
plenty  of  time  to  examine  it.  Part  of  the  building 
seemed  to  be  built  of  tolerably  modern  masonry, 
but  about  half  of  the  pillars  were  of  fine  marble, 
and  very  old.  A  beautiful  frieze  ran  under  the 
cornice,  much  broken,  it  is  true,  but  still  distinctly 
beautiful  in  design  and  workmanship.  Over  the 
doorway  was  what  seemed  to  be  a  motto  in  Greek 
characters,  but  it  was  sadly  defaced,  and  quite 
illegible.  I  took  a  rough  sketch  of  the  building, 
and  was  coming  away,  when  I  heard  a  step  in 
the  underwood,  and  an  elderly  gamekeeper  came 
into  view.  He  told  me,  of  course,  that  I  was 
trespassing,  which  no  doubt  was  true  ;  but  he  was 
a  very  decent  fellow,  although  taciturn,  as  men 
often  are  who  spend  their  lives  in  the  loneliness 


THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS  77 

of  woods  and  moors.  I  gave  him  a  cigar,  and  he 
began  to  talk  slowly,  and  with  long  pauses. 

"  I  learned  from  him  that  the  ground  we  stood 
upon  belonged  to  a  certain  Roger  Cranbourne,  and 
that  it  was  his  grandfather  who  had  erected  the 
temple.  The  Cranbournes  had  all  been  eccentric, 
and  the  present  Roger  Cranbourne  was  no  excep- 
tion to  the  rule.  When  I  asked  why  they  were 
considered  eccentric  the  man  pursed  his  lips,  and 
for  a  time  said  nothing.  Then  he  seemed  to  think 
better  of  his  silence,  and  he  told  me  bit  by  bit 
a  very  curious  family  history. 

"  From  what  I  could  make  out  the  first  Roger 
Cranbourne  had  flourished  about  the  beginning 
of  the  century.  He  had  been  a  friend  of  Byron, 
and  was  more  or  less  identified  with  Byron's  wild- 
thinking  and  hard-living  set.  He  travelled  a  good 
deal,  and  was  in  Greece  about  1815,  not  returning 
to  this  country  until  after  Byron's  death  in  1824. 
When  he  came  back  to  his  estate,  he  was  so 
altered  that  no  one  recognised  him.  He  built 
this  temple  in  the  woods  from  fragments  of  the 
marbles  which  he  had  brought  home  with  him 
from  '  furren  parts,'  as  my  friend  put  it.  He 
lived  the  life  of  a  recluse,  never  went  to  church, 
had  the  very  bells  removed  from  the  tower  because 
they  angered  him,  and  during  the  summer  months 
lived  almost  entirely  in  the  woods.  He  died 
suddenly,  leaving  an  only  son,  who  bore  the  family 


78  THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS 

name  of  Roger.  This  son  also  went  abroad  as 
soon  as  he  was  of  age,  and  died  in  Athens.  He 
had  married  a  Greek  girl,  who  did  not  long  sur- 
vive him,  and  who  had  never  visited  England. 
Again  there  was  one  son,  who  bore  the  name 
of  Roger,  and  who  was  supposed  to  be  abroad 
This  son  would  now  be  about  forty.  The  game- 
keeper had  not  seen  him  since  he  was  a  youth 
of  twenty,  when  he  spent  a  year  on  the  estate 
What  was  he  like  ?  Well,  he  couldn't  rightly 
say.  One  thing  he  did  know,  that  he  was  more 
'  mazed  '  than  his  father.  He  was  always  hanging 
about  this  old  summer-house,  just  like  his  grand- 
father did.  Yes ;  come  to  think  of  it,  he  did 
remember  last  time  he  saw  'un,  and  what  he  were 
like.  He  were  very  straight,  but  not  over  tall ; 
he  had  a  lot  of  bright-coloured  hair,  and  dark  eyes, 
and  a  straight  nose.  He  used  to  walk  about  the 
woods  mostly  in  a  velvet  jacket,  and  without  any 
hat,  with  some  old  book  or  other  in  his  hand.  He 
once  asked  him  if  he'd  ever  seed  anything  out  of 
ordinar'  about  this  foolish  old  summer-house — any 
one  coming  out  of  it  or  going  in,  particular  at 
nights  ?  Of  course  he  hadn't.  If  he  had,  should 
soon  ha'  let  them  know  what  for.  '  Oh/  said  he, 
kind  o'  solemn  like,  '  doan't  ye  disturb  'em  ;  let 
'em  come  if  they  likes.'  S'pose  he  meant  gipsies 
and  suchlike,  but  there  warn't  likely  to  be  any 
such  folk  in  such  a  place,  anyway.  That  was 


THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS  79 

about  all  he  could  remember.  His  memory  was 
kind  o'  discollected  about  such  things.  However, 
he  didn't  suppose  he'd  ever  see  his  master  agin, 
now.  Hadn't  been  there  these  twenty  year,  very 
nigh,  and  no  doubt  'ud  die  furren  like  his  father 
before  'im. 

"  That  was  the  gist  of  the  gamekeeper's  story, 
and  a  very  curious  story  I  took  it  to  be.  One 
thing  was  clear  :  there  was,  at  all  events,  a  vital 
connection  between  this  solitary  woodland  glade 
and  Greece.  The  frieze  of  this  lonely  temple  in 
the  woods  might  have  been  designed  by  Phidias, 
the  pillars  might  have  seen  the  Greek  armies 
march  to  meet  Darius  more  than  two  thousand 
years  ago.  So  far  as  one  could  judge,  the  Cran- 
bournes  had  been  mixed  up  with  Greek  life  and 
politics  for  generations.  The  marbles — well,  wasn't 
it  somev.'here  between  1800  and  1815  that  Lord 
Elgin  robbed  the  Acropolis,  and  annexed  the  frieze 
of  the  Temple  of  Winged  Victory,  to  the  disgust 
of  Byron  and  a  good  many  other  people  ?  There 
was  no  difficulty  in  accounting  for  this  temple  ; 
no  doubt  the  first  Roger  Cranbourne  got  some  of 
the  spoil  and  put  it  to  this  use. 

"  I  sat  a  long  time  thinking  it  over  after  the 
gamekeeper  had  left  me.  The  place  was  very 
silent,  an  almost  religious  awe  possessed  the  woods. 
A  blackbird  hopped  silently,  as  with  feet  of  velvet, 
across  the  glade  ;  a  squirrel  ran  along  the  cornice 


8o  THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS 

of  the  deserted  temple.  What,  after  all,  if  there 
should  be  some  occult  secret  about  the  place — 
some  undying  magic  of  a  world  long  since  passed 
away,  which  had  found  a  final  refuge  in  these 
immemorial  woods  ?  Why  not  the  gods  of  Greece 
in  Oxfordshire  as  well  as  Thessaly?  Once  I 
strained  my  ears  eagerly  at  the  sound  of  a  move- 
ment in  the  grass,  and  a  clear  flute-note  in  the  dis- 
tance ;  but  it  was  only  a  rabbit  scurrying  through 
the  withered  bracken,  and  a  blackbird  adjusting 
his  mellow  vox  humana  stop  to  the  solemn  hush 
of  evening.  It  was  twilight  when  I  turned  home- 
ward. I  had  learned  nothing,  it  is  true,  that  could 
be  said  to  have  explained  my  own  experiences 
and  sensations  ;  but  I  felt  nevertheless  that  I  was 
a  step  nearer  the  solution  of  the  mystery. 

"  I  left  Oxford  shortly  afterwards.  You  will 
remember  that  I  went  away  suddenly,  and  left 
no  clue  to  my  whereabouts.  My  reasons  lay 
in  the  events  I  have  already  narrated.  I  felt  a 
growing  and  unconquerable  distaste  to  university 
life,  a  sense  of  the  childishness  of  the  whole  busi- 
ness. It  was  a  lovely  summer,  and  I  spent  nearly 
the  whole  of  it  out  of  doors.  I  was  at  Pangbourne, 
at  Goring ;  I  explored  the  least  known  eyots  of 
the  Thames,  I  walked  a  great  deal  through  the 
solitary  beechwoods  of  Buckinghamshire,  visited 
Horton,  where  Milton  wrote  his  Comus  in  the 
freshness  of  his  youth,  and  stayed  in  a  little 


THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS  81 

cottage  at  Chalfont,  near  the  still  smaller  cottage 
where  he  wrote  the  Paradise  Regained  in  his 
austere  old  age.  I  read  a  great  deal,  but  mostly 
in  the  classics — Ovid,  Lucretius,  Virgil.  One  book 
which  made  a  deep  impression  on  me  that  summer 
was  old  Apuleius — you  remember  all  about  the 
Golden  Ass,  and  the  air  of  marvel  that  clothes 
the  story,  everything  full  of  charm  and  freshness, 
like  a  child's  dream  told  to  children  in  the  dawn 
of  the  world.  My  mind  was  full  of  energy,  but  my 
thoughts  were  often  of  the  strangest.  I  concerned 
myself  a  good  deal  with  the  old  mythologies 
which  lay  behind  the  writings  of  all  these  old 
poets.  People  had  believed  them  once  ;  why  were 
they  incredible  now?  They  had  been  the  faith  of 
a  great  people,  perhaps  the  greatest.  What  had 
happened  to  the  world  that  the  modern  English 
mind  rejected  as  absurd  what  the  Greek  intellect 
believed  as  sacred  ?  Besides,  after  all,  they  were 
rational  as  well  as  charming.  The  gods  were 
delightful  deifications  of  natural  properties — the 
air,  the  sun,  the  woods,  the  waters.  What  better 
gods  did  you  want?  And  how  easy  to  imagine 
them  !  From  the  rounded  hollows  of  the  sea-wave, 
scooped  out  like  a  great  purple  shell  silvered  with 
foam — an  Aphrodite — from  the  tangled  light  and 
shadow  of  the  woods  the  dryades — in  the  still  depths 
of  unfrequented  forests  Pan  and  his  joyous  com- 
pany I  ...  I  walked  through  these  great  beech- 

6 


82  THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS 

\voods  of  Bucks  with  the  constant  sense  of  such 
unseen  comradeship  as  this.  Often,  also,  my 
thoughts  went  back  to  the  Cranbournes  and  what 
the  old  gamekeeper  had  told  me  of  them.  Were 
they,  too,  touched  with  this  divine  distraction 
which  made  modern  life  abhorrent  to  them  ?  Had 
they,  too,  dreamed  a  dream  which  had  opened 
to  them  torturing  visions  of  some  fairy  unattain- 
able world,  a  dream  handed  on  from  father  to  son, 
a  quest  taken  up  by  each  in  turn,  of  which  that 
haunted  temple  in  the  woods  was  the  type  and 
key  ?  Sometimes  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  was 
approximating  to  them.  I,  too,  spent  my  days 
in  wandering  through  the  woods,  or  floating  on 
the  quiet  waters  of  the  upper  Thames,  hatless,  and 
with  '  some  old  book  or  other '  in  my  hands,  as 
the  gamekeeper  had  put  it.  And  yet,  remember, 
I  was  not  unhappy.  It  would  be  nearer  the  truth 
to  say  I  was  ecstatic,  for  my  exuberant  sense  of 
youth  was  in  itself  a  sort  of  ecstasy. 

"  And  now  for  the  sequel.  Towards  the  end  of 
the  year  I  went  to  London  and  took  a  couple  of 
rooms  not  far  from  Piccadilly.  There  was  always 
something  in  the  roar  and  tumult  of  the  great  city 
which  fascinated  me  Some  day,  you  know,  a 
great  poet  will  take  London  for  his  theme,  and  he 
will  make  of  it  the  grandest  poem  in  the  world 
Just  as  I  had  spent  whole  days  in  listening  to  the 
wind-music  in  the  woods,  so  now  I  drank  in  the 


THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS  83 

tumult  of  the  highways,  and  rejoiced  in  it.  I 
heard  in  the  infinite  reverberations  of  the  streets  the 
trampling  of  a  great  host,  vaster  far  than  was  ever 
led  by  Xerxes  or  Alexander,  marching  to  a  grim 
battle  that  never  had  a  truce.  I  watched  the 
battle,  alien  from  it,  but  not  indifferent  to  it. 
This,  at  least,  was  life ;  it  was  not  playing  at  life, 
which  is  the  chief  occupation  of  universities.  I 
was  a  mere  spectator,  but  an  eager  one.  I  watched 
the  storm  of  action  ;  that  was  enough  for  me. 

"  One  afternoon  it  happened  that  I  was  tempted 
by  the  extreme  mildness  of  the  air  to  spend  an 
hour  in  St.  James's  Park.  Usually  I  never  entered 
the  parks  ;  they  were  too  clumsy  a  plagiarism  on 
nature.  But  there  was  on  this  afternoon  an  almost 
spring  warmth  in  the  air,  and  the  grass  had  been 
freshened  by  heavy  rain,  and  the  water  sparkled. 
I  had  been  sitting  some  time,  watching  the  nurse- 
maids and  the  children,  the  hurrying  clerks,  and 
the  heavy-eyed  out-o'-works,  when  my  attention 
was  arrested  by  a  man  who  was  walking  slowly 
toward  me.  He  carried  his  hat  in  his  hand,  and 
wore  a  tarnished  brown  velvet  jacket,  out  of  the 
pockets  of  which  some  leather-bound  books  bulged. 
He  had  a  quantity  of  fair  hair,  dark  eyes,  and  a 
face  that  was  singularly  worn  and  yet  eager.  As 
he  passed  he  looked  at  me  with  what  seemed  to 
be  surprised  scrutiny ;  then  he  turned  back,  and 
took  the  unoccupied  seat  beside  me.  AH  at  once 


84  THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS 

there  flashed  across  my  mind  the  old  gamekeeper's 
description  of  Roger  Cranbourne.  The  fair  hair, 
the  velvet  jacket,  the  slim  and  ancient  books 
protruding  from  the  pocket — they  entirely  answered 
to  Roger  Cranbourne. 

"  Before  I  could  take  any  note  of  what  led  up  to 
it  we  were  engaged  in  conversation.  Somehow  the 
man  had  a  look  of  Shelley  about  him  :  just  that 
delicacy  and  grace  of  complexion  which  you  see 
in  portraits  of  Shelley,  and  something  too  of 
Shelley's  intensity  of  nature  and  boyish  frankness 
visible  in  his  eyes.  I  think  our  talk  began  by  some 
mention  of  poetry,  a  line  he  quoted  which  was 
familiar  to  me,  and  wonderfully  apposite  to  the 
scene  before  us.  The  moment  I  began  to  speak 
his  manner  changed.  He  embarrassed  me  with 
the  closeness  of  his  scrutiny.  I  fancied  there  was 
something  of  deference  which  approached  to  fear 
in  his  look.  Then  he  suddenly  laid  his  hand  on 
my  arm  and  said,  '  Don't  you  hear  it  ?  Listen.' 

"  I  heard  the  deep  hum  of  London,  the  boom  of 
the  great  bell  at  Westminster  striking  four,  the 
shrill  shouts  of  the  children  at  play  beside  the 
water.  And  something  else,  too.  Once  more  there 
fell  upon  my  ear  that  soft  throb  of  flutes  which  I 
had  heard  three  times  before.  It  was  clear,  distinct, 
unmistakable.  The  Park  faded  out  like  a  stage 
scene  over  which  the  curtain  falls,  and  for  a  moment 
the  old  spiritual  elation  thrilled  through  me,  and 


THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS  85 

I  saw  distinctly  a  pillared  temple  rise  in  misty 
outline  from  the  sward  of  the  Park,  and  a  long 
line  of  white-robed  youths  and  maidens  move  to- 
wards it.  The  vision  lasted  but  an  instant.  I 
turned  slowly  to  him  and  said,  '  You  must  be 
Roger  Cranbourne,  I  think?'  He  smiled,  and  said, 
'  And  you  ?  Ah,  well,  I  needn't  ask.  You  probably 
don't  know  who  you  are.' 

"This  was  sufficiently  astonishing,  but  what  he 
went  on  to  say  was  much  more  so.  He  assumed 
that  I  knew  his  history  ;  he  never  inquired  by 
what  means. 

"  '  You  have  been  to  that  summer-house  of  mine 
at  Deepthorpe?  I  knew  it  You  need  not  tell 
me  what  you  saw  there ;  I  know  already.' 

"  And  then  he  began  to  unfold  a  story  which 
gave  the  clue  to  all  that  had  happened  to  me. 
He,  and  his  father  and  grandfather  before  him, 
had  cherished  a  great  secret,  and  had  spent  their 
lives  in  striving  to  unravel  it.  The  first  Roger 
Cranbourne  had,  as  I  supposed,  obtained  the 
marbles  for  his  summer-house  by  robbing  an 
obscure  Greek  temple,  in  the  time  when  Lord 
Elgin  had  made  such  forms  of  theft  fashionable. 
It  was  a  temple  small  in  size,  but  of  exquisite 
design,  which  stood  among  the  solitary  hills  a 
few  miles  from  Athens.  According  to  his  own 
account,  as  he  was  removing  part  of  the  frieze, 
a  terrible  voice  spoke  out  of  the  depth  of  the 


86  THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS 

temple,  and  thunder  began  to  roll  among  the  hills 
In  the  same  instant  he  saw  a  youth  of  majestic 
figure  stand  in  the  doorway  of  the  temple,  eyeing 
him  with  contemptuous  anger. 

" '  Poor  fool,  who  thinkest  Apollo  and  the  gods 
dead,'  said  the  voice.  '  It  shall  be  yours  to  seek 
the  gods  for  ever,  and  not  find  them  ;  yet  at  last 
they  shall  be  found  by  your  children's  children.' 

"  From  that  hour  Roger  Cranbourne  was  a 
changed  man.  If  a  vision  changed  Saul  of  Tarsus, 
why  not  Roger  Cranbourne  ?  He  was  convinced 
that  the  gods  were  not  dead — that  the  deities  of 
old  Greece  still  lived  in  some  seclusion  of  the  world 
remote  from  the  ways  of  men. 

"  He  spent  his  life  in  exploring  the  interior  of 
Greece,  and  searching  for  proofs  of  his  theory. 
He  quarrelled  violently  with  Byron  for  coming 
to  Missolonghi ;  he  wanted  Greece  left  alone, 
in  possession  of  her  ancient  peace  and  deathless 
memories.  He  wrote  and  left  behind  him,  as  a 
heritage  to  his  son,  a  detailed  account  of  all  that 
he  had  done  and  seen.  The  son  shared  his  passion 
to  the  full.  He  lived  in  Athens,  and  died  there, 
having  given  all  his  life  to  the  pursuit  of  proof  of 
his  father's  theory.  And  his  son,  the  man  who 
sat  beside  me,  had  done  the  same.  He  was  steeped 
in  Greek  poetry,  and  knew  more  of  Greek 
mythology  than  any  man  alive.  What  had  been 
denied  to  his  father  had  been  given  to  him.  He 


THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GOD3  87 

had  heard  more  than  once,  in  the  solitary  nills  of 
Greece,  during  his  explorations,  this  mystical  music 
of  pipe  and  flute,  slowly  floating  among  the  ruins 
of  marble  temples,  and  lost  in  blue  distances.  He 
had  learned  also  that  he  was  not  alone  in  his  belief 
or  in  his  quest.  There  were  others  who  had 
heard  the  music  of  the  gods ;  there  was,  in  fact,  a 
club  in  London  composed  of  those  who  practised 
the  old  rites  of  Greek  worship,  and  sought  the 
favour  of  Apollo.  And,  the  long  and  short  of  it 
was,  that  in  me  he  had  found  the  true  Apollo,  the 
child  of  Jupiter  and  Latona,  the  immortal  patron 
of  art,  and  music,  and  poetry,  the  inventor  of  the 
lyre,  the  slayer  of  the  python,  the  glorious  sun- 
child  whose  head  was  clothed  with  beams  of  light, 
the  deity  of  the  spoliated  temple,  long  banished 
and  ignoble,  but  still  worshipped  and  waited  for 
by  the  elect  souls  of  the  world  ! " 

"  All  this  in  a  London  park,  mind  you,  on 
a  December  afternoon,  with  '  Favorite '  'buses 
rumbling  in  the  distance  down  to  Victoria,  and 
newsboys  shouting  a  '  Spechul  Hextra  Hectto!  " 

Boynton  rose,  and  waved  his  hand  with  an 
angry  gesture.  He  had  read  my  incredulity  on 
my  face. 

"  Not  a  word  !  "  he  cried.  "  I  no  longer  explain 
myself — I  affirm  myself." 

"  But,"  I  began,  "  you  surely  cannot  think " 

w  I  have  ceased  to  think,"  he  said  gravely.     "  I 


am  the  product  of  causes  which  defy  thought. 
Yet  consider  what  I  have  told  you.  Take  the 
incidents  one  by  one,  and  weigh  their  significance 
First,  this  strange  waking  up  in  myself  of  sensations 
which  unlock  the  past ;  then,  the  visions,  always  the 
same,  and  explicable  on  no  theory  of  disease  ;  the 
curious  hatred  of  Christianity,  as  of  something 
that  excites  in  me  fear  and  revulsion  ;  the  basis 
of  real  fact  in  all  that  relates  to  the  Cranbournes, 
and  the  temple  in  the  woods.  They  all  fit  together, 
they  cohere,  they  explain  each  other.  Man,  I  say, 
they  cohere  !  "  he  ended  passionately. 

He  stood  flushed  and  silent,  and  I  am  free  to 
confess  that  a  vague  fear  began  to  possess  me. 
There  was  something  in  his  aspect  which  was 
bright  and  terrible.  The  close  rings  of  his  hair 
seemed  more  and  more  like  delicate  curved  flames, 
and  his  eyes  were  like  wells  of  magnetic  fire. 
Writing  in  cool  blood,  now  that  years  have  passed, 
it  would  be  easy  to  say  that  he  was  insane  ;  but 
no  such  thought  crossed  my  mind  at  the  time. 
There  was  intellect  stamped  on  every  line  of  his 
face ;  his  aspect  was  radiant,  but  with  no  baleful 
fires  of  mental  disorder— rather  with  youth,  beauty, 
and  truth. 

The  hour  was  late ;  it  was  close  on  midnight. 

"  I  do  not  expect  that  we  shall  ever  meet  again," 
he  said.  "  There  can  be  no  harm  in  letting  you 
see  that  at  least  I  have  not  altogether  dreamed  a 


THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS  89 

dream.  You  modern  men  " — I  noticed  the  way  in 
which  he  unconsciously  detached  himself  from  me 
and  all  my  world — "have  much  to  learn.  And 
first  of  all  you  have  to  learn  that  there  is  nothing 
so  false  as  the  obvious,  and  nothing  so  likely  to 
be  true  as  the  improbable." 

He  beckoned  Antonio,  and  spoke  a  few  words 
to  him  in  a  language  which  was  strange  to  me. 
The  man  bowed  very  low,  and  in  a  moment  or 
two  returned  wearing  a  long  black  cloak. 

"  Come,"  said  Boynton. 

I  rose  and  followed  without  a  word.  It  did 
not  even  occur  to  me  to  make  the  least  resistance. 
Whatever  was  the  species  of  power  or  influence 
which  Boynton  possessed,  it  controlled  me  like 
magic. 

We  passed  out  into  the  rainy  streets,  and  were 
soon  threading  the  tangled  maze  of  Soho.  I 
recognised  Wardour  Street  for  a  moment,  but  that 
was  all.  We  plunged  into  bye-paths  and  alleys, 
crossed  one  or  two  broader  thoroughfares,  and 
again  were  lost  in  the  gloom  of  brick  labyrinths, 
rubbed  our  shoulders  against  slimy,  dripping  walls 
at  sharp  corners,  and  stopped  at  last  at  a  broad 
doorway,  framed  in  ancient  wooden  pilasters. 
The  door  opened  silently  to  the  signal  of  Antonio, 
and  I  found  myself  in  a  wide  oak-panelled  hall. 
It  was  evidently  one  of  those  ancient  houses  still 
to  be  found  in  Soho,  once  the  town-houses  of  the 


90  THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS 

great  gentry,  now  hidden  a\vay  and  forgotten  in 
the  growth  of  modern  London.  A  dim  light 
burned,  a  broad  oak  staircase  rose  before  me, 
losing  itself  in  the  upper  darkness.  Boynton  and 
Antonio  had  disappeared. 

I  had  waited  for  perhaps  ten  minutes,  when  I 
heard,  far  away  in  the  upper  stories,  what  seemed 
like  choral  singing.  A  moment  later  a  bright 
light  flooded  the  staircase,  and  Antonio  came  to 
me.  He  was  no  longer  dressed  as  modern  men 
are ;  he  wore  a  species  of  white  garment,  girded  at 
the  waist,  with  open  armholes,  through  which  his 
swarthy  arms  appeared. 

"  The  Signer  is  ready  ?  "  he  said  quietly. 

I  nodded  assent.  He  began  to  ascend  the  broad 
staircase,  and  I  followed  him,  not  knowing  what  to 
expect.  As  we  ascended  higher  the  music  became 
more  defined.  It  was  peculiarly  soft,  slow,  and 
solemn,  like  nothing  which  I  have  heard  before  or 
since.  I  could  discern  something  like  the  mellow 
note  of  the  oboe,  the  thrill  of  a  muted  harp-string 
— that  was  all.  Then,  suddenly,  broad  folding- 
doors  at  the  top  of  the  staircase  were  flung  openf 
and  I  saw  the  strangest  scene. 

The  room  was  a  large  one,  of  noble  proportions — 
probably  the  ancient  ball-room  or  banqueting  hall 
of  the  mansion.  There  was  a  lofty  painted  ceiling, 
half-a-dozen  tall  windows,  and  panelled  walls. 
There  was  no  furniture.  At  one  end  of  the  room 


THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS  91 

deep  curtains  of  ivory-white  hung  from  cornice  to 
floor.  A  soft  light  fell  apparently  from  the  ceiling, 
but  it  lit  the  room  imperfectly,  leaving  deep 
shadows.  A  peculiar  pungency  filled  the  air : 
something  reminiscent  of  incense,  but  it  was 
rather  a  pungency  of  flowers,  a  faint,  intoxicating 
odour,  that  seemed  to  come  in  gusts  or  waves, 
making  the  air  suave  and  languorous.  There  were 
about  thirty  men  present,  all  dressed  like  Antonio 
in  long,  white  garments  ;  they  were  all  young,  and 
their  faces  had  a  curious  pallor  as  of  ecstasy.  So 
absorbed  were  they,  so  visibly  caught  in  the  strain 
of  some  powerful  emotion,  that  my  entrance  did 
not  excite  the  least  attention.  They  were  reciting 
what  seemed  to  be  a  litany,  but  in  tones  so  low  that 
the  words  were  indistinguishable.  All  the  time 
the  music  went  on,  subtly  weaving  itself  into  the 
cadences  of  their  voices,  with  now  a  low  vibrating 
note  from  some  mellow  wood-instrument,  and  now 
the  keen  thrill  of  a  harp-string. 

All  at  once  the  light  grew  less,  and  finally  went 
out.  We  were  left  in  total  darkness.  Still  the 
chant  went  on,  growing  louder  and  more  impas- 
sioned ;  and  now  faint  flute-notes  began  to  dominate 
the  music.  They  grew  clearer,  louder ;  and  the 
men's  voices  rose  into  splendid  fulness  of  tone. 
Then,  all  at  once,  the  curtains  at  the  end  of  the 
room  were  drawn  back,  a  soft  light  spread  through 
the  room,  and  all  the  men  fell  upon  their  knees. 


92  THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS 

Two  men  advanced  through  the  folded  curtains, 
dressed  as  the  others  were  in  white,  and  in  one 
of  them  I  thought  I  recognised  Roger  Cranbourne. 
There  was  that  unmistakable  look  oi  Shelley  of 
which  Boynton  had  spoken,  the  eager,  hectic  face, 
the  intense  purity  and  youthfulness  of  aspect,  the 
ecstatic  eye.  The  two  men  advanced  slowly, 
reciting  in  full,  resonant  voices  the  following  lines 
in  Greek,  which  I  afterwards  discovered  to  be 
sentences  from  Pindar,  Sophocles,  and  Aristo- 
phanes : — 

Blessed  is  he  who  has  seen  the  gods  before  he  goes 
below  ground. 

Thrice  happy  they  who  have  been  initiated  before 
they  die,  for  theirs  is  the  lot  of  life,  and  evil  is  it  with 
the  others. 

We  alone  enjoy  the  holy  light,  we,  who  were  in- 
itiated, and  led  a.  life  of  godliness  toivard  both 
kin  and  stranger. 

" lo  Apollo!"  cried  the  men  in  chorus,  "/<? 
Apollo!" 

And  then  came  the  climax.  The  music  sank 
to  a  breath,  the  chorus  of  the  prostrate  men  to 
a  whisper.  A  strange  reverence  seized  me,  and, 
without  any  sense  of  volition,  I  found  myself  also 
kneeling.  "fo  Apollo  /"  went  on  the  awful  whisper  . 
"/<?  Apollo!"  cried  the  two  men  in  a  voice  of 
triumph;  and  each  knelt.  And  then,  from  between 
the  folded  curtains,  the  soft  light  seeming  to  clothe 


THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS  93 

him,  advanced  a  bright,  majestic  figure.  He  was 
naked,  save  for  the  yellow  skin  of  some  animal, 
which  covered  one  shoulder,  and  fell  to  his  knees. 
His  face  was  young  and  extremely  beautiful,  and 
shone  like  a  mask  of  alabaster  behind  which  a 
light  burned  ;  the  close  rings  of  his  hair  were  so 
many  curved  flames.  Nothing  more  godlike  could 
be  imagined ;  and  yet  I  knew  at  a  glance  that 
it  was  Boynton.  He  passed  slowly  down  the 
room,  and  the  chant  of  "/<?  Apollo!"  rose  to 
ecstasy  as  he  came  nearer.  The  room  seemed  full 
of  the  very  essence  of  youth.  I  felt  an  inde- 
scribable elation,  as  though  I  had  been  bathed  in 
some  healing  magnetic  stream.  Boynton  stopped 
a  moment  before  me  and  held  out  his  hand.  I  did 
not  respond.  I  could  only  stare  blindly,  conscious 
of  an  awful  presence,  of  a  magic  that  thrilled, 
and  awed,  and  exhilarated  me. 

"  Be  not  faithless,  but  believing,"  he  said  quietly, 
"Io  Apollo  f"  broke  out  the  chorus  once  more,  and 
the  music  seemed  melting  into  -infinite  harmonies. 
"  Thrice  happy  they  who  have  been  initiated  before 
they  die,  for  theirs  is  the  lot  of  life,  and  evil  is  it 
with  the  others"  they  all  chanted  in  unison. 

Suddenly  all  became  dark.  A  few  moments 
later  I  stood  once  more  in  the  broad  hall,  and 
Antonio  was  with  me.  We  passed  out  without  a 
word  into  the  rainy  streets.  It  was  near  two 
o'clock,  and  London  lay  like  a  tired  giant,  dreaming 


94  THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS 

the  dreams  of  Mammon.  We  parted  in  Leicester 
Square,  and  I  found  courage  to  say,  "Where's 
Boynton  ?  "  But  Antonio  only  frowned,  and  said, 
"  Ah,  Signer,  quietness  is  best."  And  with  that 
enigmatical  sentence  he  disappeared,  nor  have  I 
seen  him  since. 

Years  have  passed  since  these  occurrences,  but 
the  memory  of  them  is  as  fresh  and  vivid  with  me 
as  though  they  had  happened  yesterday.  Boynton 
I  have  never  seen  again.  But  I  never  read  Brown- 
ing's poem  without  thinking  of  him,  and  often 
on  a  sunny  afternoon  in  Regent  Street  I  have 
found  myself  eagerly  scanning  the  stream  of  faces, 
in  the  vague  hope  of  seeing  his  emerge,  fresh  and 
young,  from  the  confusion  of  tired  and  anxious 
faces  which  compose  a  London  crowd. 

The  other  day,  in  turning  over  an  old  volume  at 
a  bookstall,  I  came  upon  a  passage  which  arrested 
my  interest,  because  it  brought  the  problem  of 
Boynton  back  to  me  in  a  peculiarly  distinct  and 
urgent  fashion.  The  book  was  one  of  those 
desultory  and  delightful  volumes  of  essays,  full 
of  fanciful  conceits,  which  were  common  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  and  the  writer  asks  : — 

"  Why  should  it  not  happen  that  beside  immortal 
waters  the  eyes  of  men  should  still  behold  the  forms 
of  deities  more  immortal  than  the  waters ;  that, 
where  so  many  immemorial  things  exist,  the  immut- 
able gods  of  woods  and  pastures  should  not  still  be 


THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  GODS  95 

found  unchanged :  so  that  purged  ears  might  still 
hear,  perchance,  the  pipes  of  Pan  upon  the  airy  and 
purged  eyes  behold  Apulh  and  his  lyre  ?  " 

I  leave  others,  either  more  or  less  sceptical  than 
myself,  to  answer  that  question. 


A     000  040  031     7 


